


We Can Work It Out

by sgtpeppers_rubbersoul



Category: The Beatles
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-22
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-10-09 06:34:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10406097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sgtpeppers_rubbersoul/pseuds/sgtpeppers_rubbersoul
Summary: This is the story where the Beatles never made it big, and separated after being deported from Hamburg. After 9 years of not seeing each other, John and Paul meet again and try to fix their broken history, while also working through their feelings for each other.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story is gonna deal with some pretty intense themes as it progresses, such as mental illness, self harm, trauma and so on. I will add trigger warnings where it’s needed, but just as a general statement, you should know from the start, it’s not for everyone and it’s definitely not for people who are into fluff.

 

 

     “I can’t believe you’re actually here!” Mike said, placing two cups of warm tea on the table. “Usually I have to come all the way to London to see you.”  
  
     “Well, I had all this free time, so I thought I’d come back for a bit, you know? It’s been too long.”  
  
     “Yes, it has. I’m amazed you even found your way here.”  
  
     Paul laughed and lit up a cigarette. “It was surprisingly easy, actually.”  
  
     He had not been in his hometown for over nine years and he had feared that he wouldn’t recognise anything and that he would feel like a tourist, visiting Liverpool for the first time, but the moment his car had entered the city, it was like he had never left. It’s strange how brains work. If you spend enough time away from something, it will – inevitably – get pushed to the back of your mind. You might go months or years without thinking about it, especially if you have other things piling up and filling your time. If you encounter that thing though, all the memories return like an avalanche, crushing over you at an overwhelming speed and making you realise that you never really forgot; you just thought you did.  
  
     “Will you go visit dad too? I think he doesn’t even know you’re here. He’ll be happy to see you.”  
  
     “Yeah, I plan to stop by his house before I go back to the hotel. I didn’t even unpack yet, you know? I just dropped my suitcase there and then came here.”  
  
     “I don’t understand why you even got a hotel room. You could have just stayed with us, we have a free room for you.”  
  
     “It’s nothing personal, Mike,” Paul shrugged, pulling his cup of tea closer to him. “I just got used to living alone. I was actually quite sad about it at first, but now I couldn’t see me living with someone else any time soon. Not even for a week.” He took a sip of the tea and nodded slowly in approval. “This is good.”  
  
     “So I take it there’s still no lady in your life, huh?” Mike asked, much to Paul’s amusement. He’d been asked that question hundreds of times already, by way too many people. It was as if the whole world wanted him to just get married already.  
  
     “No, still no lady,” he answered. “Actually, in the past couple of years, the only ladies I’ve come in contact with have been my clients.”  
  
     He wanted to say something more, to go into details about his cases – mainly about the most recent ones since the trials had been really intense and fascinating and he was so proud of himself for winning them all – but he remained silent. People didn’t usually want to hear about any of that, and even if they were willing to listen, like Mike would have definitely been, they didn’t understand and they would just stare at him as if he was speaking Chinese. Paul hated that more than anything.  
  
     “Will you go to see John play?” Mike randomly asked.  
  
     Paul looked up at him, squinting his eyes in confusion. “John?” he asked back. “My John, you mean?”  
  
     “Yeah, mate, your John. Your old friend, John,” Mike laughed. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten him.”  
  
     “Of course not, don’t be silly...” Paul replied. He had thought about John a lot more than he would like to admit. He had so many questions about John, so many things that he’d been dying to know, and trying to stop himself from dropping them all on Mike at once was almost physically painful. “He... Uhm... He still plays?”  
  
     “Oh yeah, almost every night. He’s in a different club every week though, but it’s easy to find out where he’ll play if you want to go and see him. Everyone digs him, he’s the best act in Merseyside.”  
  
     Paul squeezed the handle of his cup, scratching the porcelain surface slowly with his thumbnail. “Who does he play with?”  
  
     “No one. It’s just him with his guitar, sometimes a piano. He’s written so many songs. It’s good stuff, mate. He’s good. He could be making records and playing stadiums if you ask me or anyone else ‘round.”  
   
     “That’s what we were hoping for, back in the day. We thought we’d make it big if we just try hard enough...” He left out a sad, dry chuckle, images of his teenage years flashing through his mind like headlights in the dark. “I can’t believe he’s still at it... I was sure he’d moved on. That’s why I never asked about him, you know? I imagined he’d left Liverpool, just like me. Especially after I heard George moved to Scotland.”  
  
     “No. John never left. You should have asked me, I would have told you. I’ve been seeing him around a lot.”  
  
     Paul’s eyes focused on the burning tip of his cigarette, though he wasn’t seeing it. All he could see were his own memories. The last time he’d seen John, the last time they spoke, the days he’d spent wondering what he should do, that final decision he took, leaving and never looking back again... They were all playing in his mind, on fast-forward, and he couldn’t stop them. He sat like that for a while, trapped in that storm of images and feelings long forgotten, and he was glad that Mike didn’t interrupt him.  
  
     “You should have told me anyway,” he eventually said, tapping the cigarette above the ashtray.  
  
     “Look, if you don’t want to go see him, you don’t have to. It was just a suggestion.”  
  
     “I do. I want to go see him. I’ll go. Do you know where he’ll play tonight?”  
  
     “No, but I can find out. I told you, it’s easy to find out. I have some mates who go see him all the time.”  
  
     “I’d really appreciate it if you did.” He took another sip of his tea and tried to go back to appearing normal. He didn’t want Mike to see how much talking about John had shaken him up. Mike didn’t have to know, so he left out a hard breath and faked a smile. “How’s your wife been lately?”

 

***

 

     After leaving his brother’s house, Paul went straight to the hotel, forgetting about everything else he’d planned to do that day, like visiting his father. Discovering that John was still in Liverpool, that he had never left and that he was still making music had been enough to turn his entire world upside down. He could barely handle the mixture of nostalgia and regret that was crushing him. It was suffocating him.  
  
     He had asked Mike to give him a call at the hotel when he found out where John would be playing that night, thinking that he could try to relax a bit until his brother called, unpack his things, maybe order some food from the room service. Instead, he sat by the phone, drinking most the alcohol from the mini-bar and smoking an entire pack of cigarettes. With every minute that passed he hated his brother a bit more, and thought about calling him to ask what the Hell was he doing, but he didn’t. He knew Mike would call, eventually. He just had to wait.  
  
     When the phone finally rang, Paul answered so fast, he almost knocked it down. Mike told him the address of the club John would be playing at and that the show would start at 8 PM. Paul’s heart started beating faster when he looked at the clock and noticed it was almost 7. He thanked his brother before hanging up and rushing into the shower, all while thinking about what he should wear. _‘I have to look good,’_ he thought. _‘Although he probably won’t care what I look like... But that is no excuse to look like crap.’_ He ended up choosing a blue suit, with a white shirt and a navy blue tie. It was both comfortable and elegant, which he found perfect. _‘Why do I even care?’_ he wondered.  
  
     By the time he arrived – at 7:50 PM – the place was full and the entire area next to the stage was occupied. He thought about trying to make his way through, but eventually decided against it and sat down at the bar -  which was the only part of the club that wasn’t crowded - ordering himself a glass of whiskey.  
  
     “You’re new around here, aren’t you?” the bartender asked while pouring his drink.  
  
     Paul giggled. “Not quite.”  
  
     Looking around, he could easily tell why the man would believe he wasn’t from around. That club was small, messy and dark and it smelled like people had been smoking in it since the pyramids were still under construction. The people in there were all either rockers or hippies, who were already intoxicated though the night had not even started yet. It reminded Paul of the clubs he and John used to play at in Germany and he was comfortable in there, if not a bit nostalgic, but the outfit he was wearing and the generally sophisticated air he had acquired after years of working as a lawyer did not fit the general atmosphere of the venue. He felt like he belonged there, but he did not look the part at all.  
  
     He got so lost in his own thoughts, it startled him when everyone started screaming and cheering all of a sudden. He turned his gaze towards the back of the club and saw John walking up on the stage, holding his guitar. His hair was longer than the last time Paul had seen him and he appeared to have lost a bit of weight, but other than that, he was completely unchanged. He still looked like a rocker, with his black trousers and leather jacket, and he was staring at the screaming crowd before him as if he hated them but was happy to see them at the same time.  
  
     “John!” Paul called out loudly, getting up on his feet. “Johnny!” He waved his hand around fast, trying to catch his old friend’s attention.  
  
     The expression on John’s face didn’t change at all when their gazes met and he did not wave back. He just nodded once, acknowledging his presence there, but nothing else. The big smile on Paul’s face faded away as he slowly lowered his hand and sat back down in his chair. _‘Maybe he just didn’t recognize me,’_ he told himself, though he found that hard to believe. Even if he had changed a bit, he wasn’t by any means unrecognizable and even if John’s sight was quite poor, he used to be able to recognize him from miles away in the past. Besides, there was no way John would not recognize the sound of his voice.  
  
     As John was connecting his guitar to the amps and getting ready to start his show, Paul sighed and grabbed his whiskey, finishing it all in one gulp and slamming the glass on the counter once he was done. “Give me another one,” he told the bartender.  
  
     The man’s gaze moved from Paul to the stage and back at Paul, a small, amused smirk appearing on his face. “What’s he done to you?” he asked, refilling the glass.  
  
     “Nothing...” Paul sighed again. “We’re friends, you know? We just haven’t seen each other in a while and I’m not sure if he didn’t recognize me or if he’s just ignoring me. In either case, it annoys me.”  
  
     “Well,” the bartender laughed, “he’s probably doing it on purpose to get on your nerves. If there’s one thing John loves, that’s pissing people off, but I’m sure you know that.”  
  
     “Trust me, I do,” Paul nodded.  
  
     “He’s a good lad though, it’s just hard to see it when he’s stoned. And he is very stoned right now.”  
  
     Paul turned to look at John for a moment while taking his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. John didn’t really appear to be high, which meant that whatever he was taking, he’d been at it for long enough to become very used to it. “What’s he high on?”  
  
     “Who knows,” the bartender shrugged. “I don’t think there’s a drug left that he hasn’t tried. I’m just glad he’s off heroin. That shit was really destroying him when he was on it a few years ago. He’d come here, but he wasn’t able to sing. He collapsed on stage a few times. It was a drag.”  
  
     _‘Damn... He’s been through a lot...’_ Paul thought, as he lit up a cigarette. John started singing. It was a song Paul had never heard before, but it sounded really good and the lyrics were beautiful.  
  
     “He wrote this?” he asked the bartender, looking at him for just a moment before focusing on John again.  
  
     “Yes. Most of the songs he sings are songs he wrote himself. You like it?”  
  
     Paul nodded softly. “I love it...” He closed his eyes, trying to ignore the noise people were making and focus only on John’s singing and all the beauty, sadness and passion that his voice held. He had not realised how much he’d missed it until that moment. How much he’d truly missed _him_. He only opened his eyes after the song ended and he clapped and cheered for John together with everyone else.  
  
     “He’s good, isn’t he?” the bartender commented, looking at John with a proud smile. Paul agreed with a silent nod while drinking some of his whiskey. “My name’s David, by the way. People usually call me Dave.”  
  
     “I’m Paul.”  
  
     David took a step back, an expression of complete shock on his face. It was like Paul had just told him that he was a freaking mermaid. “No way! You’re Paul? John’s Paul?”  
  
     “Yes..?” Paul replied, quite amused by the man’s reaction. “I mean, I’m not his, but... Does he talk about me or what?”  
  
     “You have no idea,” the man laughed. “I can’t believe this! You know, I reckoned you were dead or something, the way John always talked about you. ‘My life would have been so different if Paul was still here...’ I was sure you’d passed away. He never went in too many details about who you were or what your relationship was, just that his life would have been better if you was with him.”  
  
     Paul lowered his gaze, scratching the back of his head with the hand in which he held the cigarette and moving around in the chair uncomfortably. David’s words were like a punch in the gut that made a painful knot of guilt form in his stomach  
  
     “I had to leave, you know?” he found himself saying to David. “There was nothing else I could do. My dad didn’t really give me much choice and I just thought that –“  
  
     “Hey,” the man stopped him, moving a bit closer to him. “I ain’t got nothing against you, lad. I’m not the one you should be telling all of this to.”  
  
     David turned to look at John, who had already started playing his second song, and Paul turned to look at him as well. Watching him only amplified all the emotions though. “Yeah, I know...” His left hand was still on his glass of whiskey, and he squeezed it so hard, he thought it might shatter.  
  
     “I think you were right earlier, I think he may have not recognised you,” David said. “He’s got a few more songs to play and then he will take a break before going back up on stage. If you want, I can go and tell him you’re here when that happens. I’m sure he’ll be excited.”  
  
     “I’d really appreciate it if you did that. Thank you.”  
  
     David smiled and tapped his shoulder and Paul returned the friendly gesture. He was glad that he had sat at the bar instead of trying to squeeze his way through the crowd to get close to the stage, like he had initially thought about. _‘Probably the only good decision I’ve taken in years...’_ he told himself.  
  
     As John’s performance continued, Paul noticed that everyone was singing along with him. They knew his music by heart, they had memorised every word and there he was, hearing it for the first time. He was the only one there who was silent, the only one who was unfamiliar with John’s new work. It made him feel like a terrible friend. _‘How was I to know that he won’t move on?’_ he thought, in an attempt at making himself feel better, which would have worked if he wouldn’t have always been aware of the fact that John had never wanted to do anything else except for music. _‘I should have known...’_  
  
     By the time John put his guitar down, announcing his break, Paul had gone through eight cigarettes, two more glasses of whiskey and hundreds of soul-crushing thoughts that were making him think he might lose his mind. David left so fast, Paul didn’t even notice he was gone until he saw him walking next to John and whispering something in his ear. He saw John looking in his direction and he waved at him, with a lot less enthusiasm than the first time he’d seen him when John had walked on stage. Granted, he wasn’t as sober or as happy as he’d been anymore.  
  
     He took a deep breath in when John and David began walking towards him. The closer they were getting, the more obvious it became to Paul that his friend was not at all pleased. John stopped right in front of him and looked at him from head to toe from behind his sunglasses, as David got on the other side of the bar and started serving some customers.  
  
     “Well, don’t you look like a fancy bastard,” he said dryly.  
  
     Paul giggled and shook his head at the remark, getting up from his seat. “Hey, John. It’s good to see you.” He moved closer to him, opening his arms and going in for a hug, but John placed his hand on his chest to keep him away.   
  
     “Don’t touch me.” The way he said it was cold and sharp, almost like a warning.  
  
     “Alright then...” Paul replied, trying his best not to sound as disappointed as he felt.  
  
     “Can I touch you, John?” A blonde girl asked, grabbing onto John’s arm with both hands and pressing her body against him.  
  
     John wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her closer. “Yeah, come here,” he said, giggling as she kissed his neck. “What’s your name, girl?”  
  
     “Annie,” she told him. “I’m in love with you!”  
  
     “That’s adorable,” John mockingly said.  
  
     He made a weird face at her and the girl laughed, pushing herself up on her toes and pressing a big kiss on his cheek, leaving a red lipstick mark on him. More people emerged from the crowd, mostly girls, all trying to kiss John and showering him with compliments. There were some guys too, who shook his hand or gave him a pat on the back. Paul took a step back to give them all some space, digging his hands into his pockets and looking down at his feet. He was happy that John obviously had a lot of people that loved him and what he was doing, but at the same time, it made him feel out of place somehow.  
  
     “This is like Hamburg all over again,” he said, more to himself than to anyone else.  
  
     “Nah,” John disapproved. “People were a lot calmer in Hamburg.” They both laughed and looked at each other and for a second, Paul just wished he would have never left Liverpool. That he would have never left John. The distance he felt between then in that moment hurt too much. “That’s enough of that, everyone. Gerroff me!” John said, pushing people away and sitting down at the bar. “We can have some fun later after the show is done, alright?” he added, upon hearing the protests from the girls who wanted to keep climbing him.  
  
     His promise seemed to please them enough, because they all slowly moved away, blowing kisses at him and telling him they loved him. Paul left out a chuckle and shook his head, sitting next to John.  
   
     “You’ve changed a lot,” John told him.  
  
     “You haven’t. You’re... almost exactly how I remember.”  
  
     “Thanks, I guess,” John shrugged, turning his head towards the bartender. “Give me a beer, Dave.”  
  
     That cold, passive aggressive attitude was not unnatural for John. Paul had seen him treat many people that way before and he was quite used to it. The only thing was, John had never treated _him_ that way. “Your new songs are beautiful. I’m really impressed.”  
  
     “They would be a lot better with more instruments,” John said, facing Paul again after David handed him his beer. “But I don’t have a band anymore, you know, since my mates abandoned me a long time ago.”  
  
     “John, listen...”  
  
     “What do you want anyway? Why are you here?”  
  
     “Well,” Paul started, “I came back to Liverpool and Mike told me you’ll be playing here tonight so I came to see you.”  
  
     “What for?”  
  
     Paul had no expected that question. He blinked a few times, staring baffled at John. “What do you mean, what for? We’re still friends, aren’t we?”  
  
     “Would you call someone you haven’t seen in almost a decade a ‘friend’? Because I wouldn’t. You’re a memory, mate. Not even a good one.”  
  
     “Look...” He stopped, taking a deep breath in, trying to control his need of acting defensive. “I can explain to you why I –“  
  
     “Have you got a watch?” John interrupted him.  
  
     “Yeah..?” Paul answered confused.  
  
     “Then take a fucking look at it and notice how bloody late it is for you to come at me with this shit!”  
  
     “Aren’t you even gonna let me talk?”  
  
     “You can talk, mate, but I don’t have to listen.” He got up abruptly, turned around to leave and stopped, as if he wasn’t quite done yet. “To tell you quite frankly, Paul,” he said, facing him again, “I don’t give a damn. I’m over it. I’m over you. So you can piss off and take your bullshit excuses with you.”  
  
     After saying that he left, pushing people out of his way as he walked to the back of the club and spilling some of his beer on them in the process. Paul closed his eyes and squeezed his hand in a fist, punching the seat next to him in frustration.  
  
     “Damn it!” he whispered.  
  
     “That was brutal,” David commented.“If it makes you feel better, he is like that with everyone who ticks him off.”  
  
     “No, it doesn’t make me feel better, because I am not like everyone else. Me and him go a long way. I thought we had something special, you know?”  
  
      “You want another drink?” David offered, looking at him with a mixture of concern and compassion. “You look like you need one.”  
  
     “Just give me the whole bottle.”  
  
     “Aren’t you gonna leave?”  
  
     “No. I will wait for him to finish his show, then I’ll try to talk to him again.”  
  
     “Well... I wouldn’t advise you to do that, but it’s your decision. However, you should go with him outside if that’s what you want to do. I don’t want your blood all over my floor if he decides to break your face.”  
  
     Paul bit his lower lip, pondering on David’s words for a moment before shaking his head. “No, John would never do that.”  
  
     “I don’t think you know him as well as you think you do.”  
  
     “To me,” he added. “John would never do that to me. He’d never hit me.”  
  
     “Well... I certainly hope you’re right,” the bartender said, placing the bottle of whiskey that Paul had asked for in front of him. “But you also thought he wouldn’t speak to you the way he does to everyone else, didn’t you?”  
  
     Paul opened the bottle and filled his glass. David was right, but he didn’t want to admit to it and he didn’t want to consider the fact that John could be angry enough at him to actually attack him. He was pissed, for sure, but not that pissed. He could reason with John. He could make John forgive him. John still cared about him. He had to believe that. If he’d stop believing that, he didn’t know what he’d do with himself.  


	2. Chapter 2

 

     Paul really loved the taste of whiskey and he would drink at least a glass or two every day, usually in the evening, after dinner, while working on his cases. It relaxed him and helped him think. But he rarely – if ever – consumed more than 4 glasses in one sitting. That summer night though, in 1969, Paul drank an entire bottle of whiskey, on top of the alcohol he’d already consumed at the hotel. People who were there watching him were wondering if he was trying to have a good time or to kill himself.  
  
     “You seriously need to slow down,” David told him, while watching him refill his glass with what was left of the whiskey bottle he’d given him.   
  
     “No. He,” Paul said, pointing towards the stage where John was still singing, “needs to stop ignoring him. This is all his fault. He’s acting like a damn child!”  
  
     David looked at him and raised his eyebrow. “Yeah. And you are acting like a teenage girl who just got dumped by her first boyfriend.”  
  
     “Pff,” Paul scoffed. “He’s not my boyfriend. He says we’re not even friends anymore. And I bet he’s fucking all these girls who jump him and leave their lipstick all over him.”  
  
     “You know that I was joking, right?” David asked.  
  
     Paul looked at him silently, swinging the glass around in his hand. “Yeah, I know that. I was just saying.” He took a sip and left the glass down, pressing his hands against his face and massaging his forehead and eyes. His head felt like it weight a ton, but his body felt as light and fragile as a feather, which was a terrible combination. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been that drunk. He wasn’t sure if he’d ever even been that drunk before in his life.  
  
     “Look, it’s 9:30, alright?” David said. “John will be done soon and you will be able to talk to him. So you should really stop drinking and pull yourself together, unless you want to make a complete fool out of yourself in front of him.”  
  
     “It’s okay. John sees me as a fool even when I’m stone cold sober.” Paul grabbed his pack of cigarettes and noticed, quite surprised, that it was empty. “They’re gone...” he said.  
  
     “That’s because you smoked the last one 10 minutes ago,” David reminded him.   
  
     “Oh... That’s true...” Paul nodded.  
  
     David rolled his eyes and Paul pouted at him, before turning his head around to look at John. After going back on stage, John had not even glanced in his direction, but two of the songs he’d played had been particularly angry and spiteful and Paul couldn’t stop thinking they were for him. He knew that John was only acting that way because he wanted to hurt him and he wished it wouldn’t have been working but it was. It was working really great, actually.  
  
     He brought his hands together on the table, placed his head on top of them and closed his eyes. John was singing a slow love song that was making some of the girls in the club cry. “I wonder who he wrote it for...” Paul mumbled. He thought he would sit like that for just a moment, to rest his head. It felt very good and comfortable and John’s voice was so soothing...  
  
     “Paul! Wake up!” he heard David calling out.   
  
     He raised his head up and looked at the Scottish man confused. He had fallen asleep without noticing. The music had stopped and when he turned around, he noticed that John, and almost everyone else in the club, had left.  
  
     “What time is it? How long was I asleep?” he asked, panicked. “Where is John?”  
  
     “Calm down, okay?” David said. “He’s in the back, getting ready to leave, but you can still catch him.”   
  
     Paul got up as soon as he heard that and started walking towards the back of the club. He was dizzy and his head was buzzing. He knew that it would have probably been better if he just went home, but he couldn’t do that. He didn’t want to do that. He had to speak to John. To tell John how mad he was at him for ignoring him and for treating him as if there had never been anything between them. _‘I’ll make him take it back. He can’t just treat me like that!’_ he thought.  
  
     John was not in the back of the club though and for a moment, Paul thought his friend had surely left. He started cursing everything in his mind but then he heard John’s laugh coming from outside. He recognized it instantly. His laugh had a very special ring to it. He walked to the back exit fast, almost running, and stepped outside in time to see John walking away with his hands wrapped around two girls, a blonde and a brunette, who were both giggling like idiots.  
  
     “John!” Paul called out loudly. “Hey!”   
  
     John and the girls stopped and turned around to look at him. As Paul approached them, he recognized the blonde girl as being Annie. Though he didn’t even know her, Paul didn’t like her. She was too clingy.   
  
     “Where are you going with these girls?” He asked, once he finally reached them. “Shouldn’t you be going home to Cyn?”  
  
     “Who is Cyn?” Annie asked, looking up at John.  
  
     “A girl I used to date,” John explained her. “But my ‘friend’ here hasn’t been around for nine years so of course he doesn’t know that me and her broke up ages ago.”  
  
     “Why would you do that? She really loved you.”  
  
     “I don’t know, Paul! Why did _you_ leave?”  
  
     “John, listen –“  
  
     “I saw you as my brother,” John interrupted him. “And you left me as if I wasn’t shit to you. You never wrote or called or came to visit. You abandoned me!”  
  
     “I didn’t want to though!” Paul almost yelled. “Goddamn it, I never wanted to leave! My dad forced me to.”  
  
     “Oh, come on! He forced you to, yeah right. You were not a fucking child.”  
  
     “I was 18, John! Yeah, I was not a child, but I was not a fucking adult either, you know? I was still just a kid. We all were... We were just trying really hard to pretend we’re not.”  
  
     “Even so!” John yelled. He left out a hard breath and shook his head, a look of disappointment on his face. “You should have fought for me, mate. I would have fought for you.”  
  
     “I’m sorry...” Paul said. There were tears shining in his eyes, but he was trying not to let them fall. “I am really sorry, John. Please, just forgive me, will you? I hate knowing you’re mad at me.”  
  
     “Is he gonna cry?” Annie giggled.  
  
     “He’s really cute,” the brunette said.  
  
     “Shut the fuck up, both of you,” John coldly told them, pushing them away and taking a step closer to Paul. “How much did you drink?”  
  
     “Does it matter?”  
  
     “Yeah, it does. You smell like a whiskey factory.”  
  
     “I’m not saying this just because of the alcohol, John,” Paul assured him. “I really am sorry. I mean it, I swear to God.”  
  
     “Yeah, well, I don’t believe in God.”  
  
     “You don’t? Since when?”  
  
     “Jesus Christ, Paul!” John snapped angrily. Paul took a big step back, fearing for a second that he might actually get punched in the face like David had warned him. His action made John’s expression switch from angry to surprised and disturbed. “You’re afraid of me?”  
  
     “No. You just... You seem really pissed off right now.”  
  
     “If I wanted to beat you, I would have knocked you down the moment I saw you, mate. So don’t you back away from me like I’m your dad.”  
  
     “I’m sorry...” Paul said, moving closer to him again.   
  
     “You’re like a broken fucking record,” John replied. “Listen, if it makes you feel better, I forgive you. Okay? Is it better? Will it help you sleep?”  
  
     “No, because you don’t mean it...”  
  
     “Well, it’s the best I can do. So just take it and go back to your fancy life in London.”   
  
     “Look, I just want us to –“  
  
     “Is Dave still in there?” John cut through him. “Dave!!” he shouted. “Get your ugly face out here!”  
  
     “Don’t be so mean to Dave,” Annie said, laughing together with her friend. “He’s got a really pretty face.”  
  
     “I know,” John nodded. “That’s why I hate it.”  
  
     David came out of the club and walked fast towards them, looking quite worried. “Is everything alright?” he asked.  
  
     “Can you give Paul a ride home? I’m not sure if he’s staying with his brother or his father, but in either case, it’s pretty far from here and he’s too bloody wasted to make it there safely.”  
  
     “I’m not staying with either of them, I’m staying at a hotel.”  
  
     “Why?” John asked.  
  
     “It’s... more comfortable? And I don’t need anyone to drive me home, I can handle it.”  
  
     John looked him up and down and raised his eyebrow. “Yeah, I’m sure of that, mate. It’s not like you’re barely standing up.”  
  
     “I’ll make sure he makes it to the hotel safely,” David promised. “You don’t have to worry.”  
  
     John thanked him and gave him a smile before wrapping his arms around the two girls again and pulling them back next to him. “Sorry about that, ladies. Where were we?”  
  
     “We were about to go to your place,” Annie reminded him, caressing his chest.  
  
     “I was indeed,” John smirked. “Let’s go.”  
  
     “You can’t just leave!” Paul protested, when John and his fangirls turned around and started walking away.  
  
     “Why?” John asked, without turning to look at him. “You think you’re the only one who can do that?”   
  
     Paul wanted to go after him, but David placed his hand on his shoulder and stopped him. “Let him go. He’s tired and you are drunk. You two will probably just end up fighting, it won’t solve anything.”  
  
     “But he’s still mad at me!”  
  
     “He is. And you can’t change or fix that all in one night. Give him some time. He’s probably still shocked that you’re back.”   
  
     “Yeah... Probably...” Paul said, standing still and watching John walking away until he couldn’t see him anymore. He felt his heart sinking in his stomach and he squeezed his hand into a tight fist. He hated that irritating feeling of hopelessness.   
  
     “You know, I’ve known John for over seven years now and he never asked me to help any of his friends or get them home safely, even if many of them got a lot drunker than you on more than one occasion,” David told him, as they were walking back inside the club. “It’s obvious that he cares about you a lot. I don’t know what happened between you two, but I am sure you can solve it. You just need be patient. These things take time.”  
  
     Paul just nodded silently. _‘But I only have one week...’_ he thought.

 

***

 

     Paul ran his fingers through his hair, to fix it a little, before taking a deep breath in and knocking on the door. His heart was racing inside his chest. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d felt so nervous. Actually, he could. He’d felt the same way when he returned back home after being deported from Hamburg, but he didn’t want to think about that.   
  
     9 AM was too early for a visit, so he wasn’t too surprised when nobody answered. He just knocked again. David had walked him to the hotel the previous night and Paul had managed to make him tell him where John lived. As he sat there knocking, he wondered if he even remembered the address correctly. _‘Damn it...’_ he thought. _‘Was it number 24 or 34?’_  
  
     Just as he was getting ready to leave, the door opened and he saw Annie standing there. Her blonde hair was messy and she looked like she had just finished getting dressed. Paul stared at her and she stared back at him, both surprised by the other’s presence. “Who is it?” John’s voice came from inside the house.  
  
     “It’s that annoying pretty boy from last night!” Annie replied to him loudly.  
  
     Paul didn’t know if he should feel flattered or offended by her view of him, so he just rolled his eyes, pushed her out of the way and walked in. The hall opened into a living room on the left side and a kitchen on the right. There was a door at the end of the hall but it was shut so Paul couldn’t see inside. He assumed that was the bedroom though. The entire place smelled like alcohol, cigarettes and drugs. It was worse than the club John had played at the previous night, since the space was smaller.   
  
     “Don’t let him in,” John said.   
  
     His voice was coming from the living room so Paul stepped inside and looked at him. “Too late, I’m already in.”  
  
     “Bloody Hell...” John sighed.   
  
     He was sitting in an armchair at the back of the room, smoking a cigarette. He didn’t seem to have been awake for too long. Annie closed the door and walked past Paul, going straight to John and sitting in his lap.   
  
     “I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop him,” she said.  
  
     “It’s fine, don’t worry about it.” He handed her his cigarette and she took a puff, wrapping her left arm around his shoulders. “How did you find out where I live?” John asked, looking up at Paul.  
  
     “It wasn’t that hard. I just picked a girl at random and asked her. They all know where you live.”  
  
     “Very funny, Paul,” John sarcastically said. “It was Dave, wasn’t it?”  
  
     “Yeah,” Paul admitted. “Don’t get mad at him though, alright? He didn’t want to tell me but I convinced him.”  
  
     “Did you give him your puppy look and said pretty please?”  
  
     “Maybe...” Paul said, batting his eyelashes and pouting. He stopped when he heard John laugh and giggled. “Works on everyone except the judge, really.”   
  
     “Un-fucking-believable...” John shook his head, taking his cigarette back from Annie.  
  
     “Where’s the other girl?” Paul asked. “The brunette.”      
  
     “Veronica had to leave early,” Annie answered him. “She had to make sure she got back home before her husband returned from his nightshift.”  
  
     Paul raised his eyebrows and looked at the floor, nodding his head slowly. “Makes sense,” he said. “Wow.”  
  
     “I should probably get going too,” the girl told John, brushing the back of his head gently with her fingers. “I am sure you two have a lot of things to scream at each other.”  
  
     “Hopefully not,” Paul commented. “I didn’t come here to scream.”  
  
     She ignored him and kept staring at John with desire and infatuation. “Can I come back?”  
  
     “Not tonight,” John said, caressing her back. “But keep coming to see my shows and... we’ll see what happens.”  
  
     Annie smiled and they kissed. Paul turned his head around, staring at the room and trying to ignore them. The place was a mess. There was dust and ash everywhere, records scattered around the floor and some clothes thrown at the back of the room. Paul felt the need to start cleaning, but he doubted John would appreciate that. John had never liked it when people got into his things or told him what to do or how to live his life. He was sure that hadn’t changed.  
  
     “I love you,” Paul heard Annie saying. “You’re beautiful.”  
  
     “You just want me for my body, huh?” John said and she laughed.  
  
     They both got up and John put his cigarette off in the ashtray from the table before walking her to the door. Paul crossed the room and sat down in the John’s armchair while waiting for him. It was rather snug. There was a couch right next to it but it didn’t look as cozy.  
  
     “You comfortable?” John asked, walking back into the room.  
  
     “Very,” Paul answered. “Although your house does look as if a bomb went off in here.”  
  
     John shrugged carelessly. “Happens when you don’t have a woman ‘round.”  
  
     “You don’t seem to be lacking women.”  
  
     “They come here to fuck, not clean my house, mate. Although they probably would do it if I asked them to...” He seemed to be considering the idea. He sat down on the couch and left out a loud breath, looking at Paul with a resigned expression, as if he was tired of pushing him away. “You look a lot better today. Without that lawyery outfit you had last night.”  
  
     Paul looked down at his clothes and then back at John. He had not given much thought to what he should wear that morning, just putting on a pair of jeans and a white shirt, which were the first things he’d found upon opening his suitcase. “I was trying to look good last night. To impress you, I guess... That didn’t work out. Typical...”  
  
     “You’re such an idiot...” John chuckled, shaking his head.   
  
     Paul lowered his head, feeling a bit embarrassed, and his attention fell on John’s arms. There were scratches and cuts all over them, starting above the wrist and spreading all the way to the front of his elbow. They varied in size and some looked more recent than others. John noticed him staring and grabbed onto a pillow, squeezing it in his arms to cover them.  
  
     “What happened?”  
  
     “I got a cat,” John answered fast.  
  
     Paul bent backwards in the armchair and pulled his pack of cigarettes out, trying hard to stop himself from telling John that that was the biggest load of bullshit he had ever heard in his life. “Where is it?” he asked, while lighting up a cigarette.  
  
     “What?”  
  
     “The cat that scratched you.”  
  
     John was silent for a moment, looking into nowhere and squeezing the pillow a bit tighter in his arms. “He died,” he eventually replied.  
  
     “John, I am not an idiot, okay? I know you did that yourself.” John didn’t answer. Paul took a long puff from his cigarette, releasing the smoke through his nose. He had wondered why John had been wearing a leather jacket last night, even if it was way too warm to be wearing one. It had not occurred to him that John may be trying to hide something though; especially not something like that. “Was it because you missed me?” he asked.  
  
     John threw his head back laughing and laid down on his back on the couch, letting the pillow fall onto the floor. “Oh, that’s a good one,” he said, through the laugher. Paul looked at him unamused. He didn’t find it funny. “Not everything is about you, Paul. Can you be any more full of yourself, mate?”  
  
     “I am not being full of myself...” Paul said, rolling the cigarette around in his hand. “I just feel really guilty.”  
  
     “Good,” John said. “That’s very good. You should definitely feel guilty. But not for this. This...” He paused and just looked at his arm for a moment. “This is all me, not you.”  
  
     “Thought it was the cat,” Paul replied, raising his eyebrow.  
  
     John laughed again and looked at him. “It’s better if you think of it that way.” He got up and grabbed a long sleeved shirt from the floor, putting it on. “See? All gone now.” He threw himself back on the couch and looked up at the ceiling. “You know, I actually told that story to everyone else who’s ever asked and they all believed me.”  
  
     “I doubt they believed you. No one would believe that. They just probably chose to let you think that they believe you, just to avoid getting into it.”  
  
     “I see what you’re saying.”John grabbed a lighter from the table and started spinning and rolling it around with his fingers. “They just didn’t give a fuck.”  
  
     “Basically.”  
  
     “But you do.”  
  
     “I do,” Paul said, “even if you don’t believe me.”           
  
     John shook his head slowly, still playing with the lighter. “You got a funny way of showing it, mate.”  
  
     “I know that what I did was wrong...” Paul said. He expected John to interrupt him, like he’d kept doing each time he tried to explain himself, but John remained silent. Paul couldn’t tell if he actually wanted to hear for once or if he was just too lost in his own thoughts to care. It didn’t matter anyway. It was his chance to let it all out. “I shouldn’t have left, I should have tried harder for our band, for you and me... I get it and I am so sorry. It’s all on me and I can never change it or take it back. I just want you to let me try to fix it... I want us to be friends again.”  
  
     “You’re moving back here?” John asked, after he was done talking.  
  
     “Well... No. I actually have to return to London in a week. I just came here for a vacation, you see? I have clients.”  
  
     “So you just want to fix things so you can break them again, right?” John concluded, a sad smile appearing on his face. “Because the second time’s better.”  
  
     “It’s not like that... It would be different this time.”  
  
     “How the Hell would it be different?”  
  
     “Well, I wouldn’t just disappear anymore this time,” Paul started. “I would come back. I could come and spend every weekend and every free day I have here with you. We could talk on the phone all the time. I am doing really well now, with my job and all, you know. I could help you out, get you out of this slum, get you a better flat, a better guitar, whatever you want...” He finished with a sigh and left his head down. “I just want to be part of your life again, you know?”  
  
     “You offering me your blood money?” John asked, on a half serious, half amused tone.  
  
     Paul stared at him in uncomfortable silence for a moment. He felt really insulted. “I don’t know what you think I’m doing, but there is no blood on my money.”  
  
     “You spend your time sending poor bastards to jail just like a fucking copper.”  
  
     “No, John. I bring bad people to justice,” Paul corrected him.  
  
     “Bad people...” John mumbled. “People like me.”  
  
     “You’re not bad.” John didn’t say anything and Paul bent forword and touched his leg, giving it a little squeeze to catch his attention. “Hey, look at me. You’re not bad...”  
  
     When their gazes locked, Paul saw a sadness and emptiness in those big brown eyes that broke his heart. John didn’t believe him. He genuinely thought he was bad. “That ash is gonna fall on your lap.”   
  
     Paul looked at the cigarette he was holding in between his fingers. He had completely forgotten to smoke it and the thin paper around it had turned into a long string of ash. He tapped it in the ashtray and put it off.  
  
     “Look, mate,” John said, getting back into a sitting position and leaving the lighter he had been playing with back on the table. “I really appreciate the gesture, but I don’t want any of your money, clean or not. And I don’t want to be long distance friends with you either. Quite frankly, you are just depressing me and I think it would be better if you just left.”  
  
     “I’m not going,” Paul told him, crossing his hands on his chest. “What will you do? Kick me out?”  
  
     “If I must. I’d rather you not make me do that though.”  
  
     “I am not leaving until you agree to let me be your friend again.”  
  
     John looked angry for a moment, before his expression softened and turned into one of curiosity. “You really want to make things right?” he asked.  
  
     “Yes,” Paul answered.  
  
     Without saying anything, John got up in his feet and left the room. Paul watched him leave, his lips slightly parted, whispering a soft _‘what the hell..?’_ to himself. He heard the bedroom door open and then he heard it close a few moments later. John walked back in the living room with a guitar in his hands and for a moment, Paul wondered if he was going to sing him an angry song or something.  
  
     “Can you still play?” John asked, placing the guitar in Paul’s lap.  
  
     Paul looked up at him and then down at the instrument. _‘Is this a test?’_ he wondered. “Well, I... I mean, I guess...” He picked it up and started playing the first song that came to his mind, an old Rock’n’Roll tune from the 50s. His playing wasn’t as good as it used to be, but it was decent.  
  
      “You’re kinda rusty but it will do with a bit of practice,” John told him.  
  
     Paul stopped playing. “I have a piano at home. I am a lot better at that,” he explained. “I don’t get it, what do you want? You want us to put the band back together?”  
  
     “Not the band, just you and me. We could be a duo. Lennon/McCartney. Has a beautiful sound to it, doesn’t it? People would love it!”  
  
     “John...”  
  
     “It’s either that or you can get the fuck out of my house.”  
  
     “But I told you, I can’t stay for more than a week.”  
  
     “You said you will come to visit, right? We can play together as a duo when you’re here and I’ll play on my own in the rest of the time. If you want us to be friends again, this is what it will take.”  
  
     Paul pondered on it for a second. A second in which hundreds of thoughts raced through his brain. He had given up on music and he didn’t think he’d be any good at it anymore, even if he had been writing some songs as well, just for fun, at his house. Songs no one had ever heard and that he had no plans of showing anyone. He had thought music would forever remain his hidden passion, that reminded him of the good old days when he was a young and hopeful kid with big dreams. There was no part of his being that was prepared to go back on stage. However, he was even less prepared to lose John again.  
  
     “Alright,” he agreed. “I’ll do it. I’ll do anything you want.”  
  
     A big, happy smile appeared on John’s face. It looked so honest and childish it almost made Paul feel sad. There was an innocence behind it that broke his heart. “Hold on,” John said, leaving the room again in a hurry. He returned after a moment with another guitar, pushed everything that was on the table out of the way and sat down in front of Paul. “Alright, look. I will teach you to play some of the songs I wrote. We can start with the easy ones.”  
  
     “Right now?” Paul asked. He had not expected that.  
  
     “Yeah! I have a gig tomorrow at this other club. We can practice all day today and go there together. We’ll blow the roof off!”  
  
     Paul wanted to protest, but he couldn’t. Not when John was that excited. It was like he had forgotten everything about the nine years Paul had been away or the argument they’d had the previous night. It didn’t seem to matter anymore and that was what Paul had wanted to begin with. “Alright,” he said with a smile. “Show me.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just want to say thank you to everyone who's been reading this! I'm so happy that you guys are enjoying my story! <3 Also, I am sorry for not updating faster, I have been a bit busy this week. Chapter 4 will come a lot sooner than this one, I promise ^^

     John’s musical skills had certainly grown a lot in the nine years that they had been apart. Though he was taking it easy and explaining everything carefully, Paul found it hard to keep up with him. His fingers moved too fast, the songs were too long and there were way too many words to memorise. Paul was not one to easily give up, but he felt deeply overwhelmed by the situation. John had become a true musician, while he’d not advanced at all since he was 18 years old. His insecurity was getting stronger with each new minute that passed and each chord and note he messed up on. It felt so hopeless.  
  
     “I will just make you sound bad,” he said, putting the guitar down. “I mean, how long have we been at it? Three hours?”  
  
     “Four,” John corrected him, letting go of his guitar as well. He lit up two cigarettes at once and handed one to Paul.  
  
     “Four hours and I only learned three songs,” Paul laughed at himself. “This is pathetic, mate. I can’t do this anymore. I’m fucking terrible. Everyone cheers for you, but if I go up on stage, people will just laugh at me.”  
  
     “Are you done beating yourself up?” John asked, taking a long puff of his cigarette. “The songs I just taught you are the hardest songs I have. You learning them in four hours is fucking amazing, actually.”  
  
     Paul looked at him puzzled. “I thought you said you’d teach me the easy ones first.”  
  
     “I lied,” John said. “I wanted to make you see that you still got it. You looked like you needed some encouragement. You need to believe in yourself more.”  
  
     “I do believe in myself. I believe in my skills as a lawyer, for example.”  
  
     “That’s painfully boring, mate.”  
  
     “To you, maybe. I love my job.”  
  
     John nodded, but there was no sign of approval on his face. He looked disturbed and a bit confused. “Why a lawyer?” he asked. “Why did you choose this?”  
  
     Paul shrugged, shifting himself in a more comfortable position in the armchair. He’d never been asked that before. “I wanted a career, something that I could do my whole life, you know? And something that would also help others... It doesn’t hurt that it is one of the best paying jobs in the world as well.”  
  
     “Ha!” John left out a loud chuckle. “Bloody typical, mate.”  
  
     “What’s that supposed to mean?”  
  
     “You always did have a thing for money. You wanted to get rich and all that crap.”  
  
     “Well, doesn’t everyone want that?” Paul asked, not enjoying at all the accusatory tone in John’s voice.  
  
     “I never wanted that. I just wanted to play my music,” John told him. “Speaking of which...” He placed the cigarette between his lips and picked his guitar back up. “I still have some songs to teach you.”  
  
     “Oh, come on! You have to let me rest a bit. My fingers are hurting.”  
  
     “Poor little baby...” John said, in a mockingly kind voice. Paul raised his eyebrow at him and giggled. “Suck it up, son! There’s still a lot you need to learn and we only have today and tomorrow. Do you want to do this or not?”  
  
     “I do,” Paul nodded. He held back a sigh and grabbed the guitar again. “It almost feels like you prepared for this, you know?” He pointed out. “As if you knew that I would one day come back.”  
  
     “I didn’t know,” John said, “but a part of me always hoped you would.”  
  
     A sad smile appeared on Paul’s face as he felt the guilt pierce through him once more. Almost everything that John said brought out that feeling in him. He didn’t want to let it show too much though; it would have made the atmosphere even harder to bear than it already was. He decided to just focus on the music instead.  
  
     It was easier to work on the songs after John had helped him regain his confidence, even if it wasn’t any less tiring or painful. It felt worth it and feasible this time and that made all the difference. Paul did not like chasing after unattainable things. He studied each case he was given carefully and only took on the ones that he knew for sure he could win. That was what had brought him the reputation of ‘the young lawyer who has never lost a case’, a title which he was very proud of. Realising that he was still good at music, though he had thought he’d lost his touch with it, made him take it more seriously and put his soul into everything John was teaching him. However, after five more hours had passed, he decided it was time to stop.  
  
     He felt exhausted and his head was so full of new information, he could almost feel his brain overheating. “That’s enough for today,” he said, on a tone that left no room for any protests John might have had. “I am starving. If I don’t eat something, I think I might drop dead.”  
  
     “Yeah, I’m quite hungry as well,” John nodded, turning around to look at the clock on his wall. “I can’t believe we’ve been doing this for nine hours.”  
  
     “I can,” Paul said, looking down at his left hand and gently brushing his thumb over his fingertips. They were red and a bit swollen. That never used to happen back in his teenage years. “I’m gonna need some ice.”  
  
     “You need to start playing every day again, that’s what you need,” John told him, getting up and throwing his hands in the air, stretching his back. He didn’t seem tired at all, which Paul found remarkable. He also looked very beautiful, but Paul would have never told him that. “So will we go eat or what?”

 

***

 

     Finding a fine place to eat in Liverpool was not an easy task. Paul had not had time to search the area as much as he would have liked, so he ended up taking John to the restaurant from the Hotel he was staying at. He’d ordered breakfast from them that morning and it had been tasty enough to make him form a good first impression. Once they got there, he felt even more confident in the choice he’d made.  
  
     The restaurant was big, but not so much as to make you think you’d have to wait an hour to get your food. The tables were far enough apart from one another to allow the guests privacy without making them feel isolated. Everything was cream, white and gold, and the gorgeous chandelier that was hanging from the ceiling completed the elegant look. The glasses on the tables were made of crystal and the napkins were neatly folded into fans. It reminded Paul of the restaurants he often went to in London.  
  
     “I feel like I am dirtying this place just by being here,” John whispered.  
  
     “Don’t be silly,” Paul laughed. “Come on.”  
  
     He walked to one of the tables and sat down. John followed him slowly, looking around at everything as if he had just arrived on a different planet. Paul watched him with a smile and waited for him to sit down as well before making a small sign to the waiter to bring them the menu.  
  
     “Even the ashtrays look fancy,” John said, pulling the glass ashtray closer to him. “Imagine if you dropped this on the floor. It would probably shatter in two million pieces.”  
  
     “Probably,” Paul giggled. “Thank you,” he told the waiter, who had come to bring them the menus. “We’ll call you when we’re ready to order.”  
  
     The man agreed with a silent nod and left. John looked at him walking away for a moment, his lips slowly parted. “That bloke probably hates his life,” he commented, smiling when he heard Paul giggling again. “Wow,” he said, as soon as he unfolded the menu and took a look inside. “You come often to places like this?”  
  
     “I guess,” Paul said. “I like good food.”  
  
     “The prices are outrageous.”  
  
     “I will pay for everything, don’t worry.”  
  
     “You better, cause I could never afford this.”  
  
     Paul’s eyes travelled from the menu to his friend and back at the menu. He found the prices there to be pretty decent. He’d been to far more expensive restaurants. It made him sad that John felt like he could never afford eating there on his own. “What would you like?”  
  
     “I have no idea...” John said, scratching the back of his head. “The steak, I guess? It sounds good.”  
  
     “Yeah, it does,” Paul agreed, looking on his own menu at the dish John was talking about. “With some chips and a salad, maybe?”  
  
     “Yeah,” John nodded, leaving the menu down. “Just the chips for me though. I don’t like salads.”        
  
     “Alright then.” Paul turned the menu over, looking on the back at the drinks. “I think I will get a bottle of champagne as well. To celebrate our reunion.”  
  
     “Knock yourself out, mate. It’s your money.” John told him.  
  
     He seemed very uncomfortable and Paul didn’t want to waste any more time on small talk, so he called up the waiter to place their order. The friendly mood that had settled between them while they were practicing was almost completely gone; they were back in that awkward and tense ambience that Paul hated, where the only thing tying them were memories and unsolved issues.  
  
     “So, how’s London?” John asked, after the waiter left. He was obviously bothered by the ambience as well.  
  
     “Crowded,” Paul answered. “It’s beautiful, but there are so many people everywhere. I got used to it now, but it was hard to adapt at first.”  
  
     “You sure adapted a lot. You completely lost your accent.”  
  
     “Have I? I didn’t notice.”  
  
     “I did,” John said, lighting up a cigarette. “I mean, you always sounded quite posh, but now it’s like you were born and raised at the bloody palace.”  
  
     Paul laughed softly and fought the urge to roll his eyes. He knew that John was probably right, but he had honestly no idea how or when he’d lost his accent or changed the way he spoke. It was probably at some point during college. “Does it disturb you?” he asked.  
  
     “Yes,” John replied, leaning back in his chair.  
  
     Paul opened his mouth to say something, but stopped when he saw the waiter walking back to their table with the bottle of champagne he’d asked for. “Is this a special occasion?” The man asked, as he was opening the bottle.  
  
     John scoffed and took a puff out of his cigarette. “Not really,” he said, smoke coming out of his mouth as he spoke.  
  
     It took Paul all the self control he had to remain silent. _‘Yes, it is.’_ He wanted to say. _‘It is a special bloody occasion. We are finally together again! Can’t you tell how much I’ve missed you?’_ It would have been foolish to say something like that in front of the waiter though. Besides, John obviously did not realise that Paul had missed him greatly and the worst part was that Paul couldn’t even blame him for it.  
  
     “Thank you...” he muttered to the waiter with a smile, as he was filling their glasses. “Why did you stay here?” he asked, after the waiter walked away. “Why didn’t you leave?”  
  
     “Where was I to go?”  
  
     “I don’t know, somewhere else? Anywhere, really. This city is a dead end, you know?”  
  
     “Is that what they teach you down there in London?”  
  
     “No. That is just something I believe.”  
  
     John shrugged and played with his fingers on his glass, gazing at the bubbly liquid inside. “I like Liverpool,” he said. “This is my home. To be honest, I never thought about moving somewhere else.”  
  
     “I was so sure you are no longer here...” Paul told him, looking down at the table. “If I’d known, I would have returned years ago.”  
  
     When he raised his head, he found John fixating him with his gaze. His eyes were so cold and full of latent anger, it sent shivers down Paul’s back. “I’m not buying that, but I won’t argue with you.”  
  
     “I’m not selling anything. I’m being honest.”  
  
     John let out a dry laugh. “Whatever helps you sleep at night, mate.” He raised his glass and pointed it towards Paul, their gazes still locked. “To our friendship!” he announced, with fake glee. “Oh, come on,” he added, when Paul did not reply or raised his glass. “This is what you wanted to celebrate, isn’t it? Our friendship, or whatever’s left of it.”  
  
     “Why do you have to be like this?”  
  
     “Like what?”  
  
     “Like this. So ironic all the time, turning everything into a joke.”  
  
     “I was always like this, Paul. You just probably forgot that.”  
  
     “I didn’t!” Paul snapped. A few people turned around to stare at him and he smiled at them apologetically. John left his glass down, his sarcastic smile completely gone by the time Paul looked at him again. “I remember everything about you,” he continued, this time on a levelled, quiet voice. “And everything that happened between us...”  
  
     “Really? Even those nights in –“  
  
     “Especially those nights,” he said, before John could even finish his sentence.  
  
     John smiled again – a genuine smile now. He seemed pleased. “To us,” he said, raising his glass again.  
  
     It wasn’t a mockery anymore. He was serious this time, he meant it. Paul lifted his glass as well and tapped it slowly against his friend’s. “To us,” he said back, before both of them took a sip. “So, why don’t you fill me in on what I’ve been missing?” he suggested, placing the glass back on the table. “What have you been doing in the past nine years, except for writing songs and playing all over Liverpool?”  
  
     “Well, I wrote some stuff for some papers and magazines,” John started. “Nothing too big or important but it was fun and I was paid quite well for it. I worked at a motorcycle shop for a while, some years back. That was also pretty fun, but I ended up quitting because my boss was a jerk. I tried a lot of jobs that didn’t turn out quite right. I illustrated a couple of books. Thought about turning that into an actual career, but changed my mind, eventually. It was too much work and I was not paid enough to make it feel worth it, you know?” He paused for a moment, spinning his almost finished cigarette in his fingers. “I was in jail for a while...” he eventually resumed.  
  
     Paul laughed, thinking it was just another one of John’s jokes. John didn’t laugh or even smile though; he had a blank, almost paid expression. “You’re serious about this?” Paul asked, his amusement dying as soon as John nodded. “What for?”  
  
     “Drug dealing,” John said, pressing the burning end of his cigarette in the ashtray. “It was one of those jobs that didn’t turn out right.”  
  
     “When did this happen? For how long were you in jail?”  
  
     “It happened in 1962. And I was in for almost two years. It was...” he paused again, looking into nowhere, searching for the right words. “It was horrible.”  
  
     He was scratching his thumb with his index finger roughly, but he didn’t seem to be aware of it. Paul placed his palm on top of his hand to stop him. “I’m really sorry...” he said.  
  
     John looked up at him and then down at their hands for a second, before pulling away from his touch and grabbing his glass of champagne, which he finished from one fast gulp. “That was when Cynthia and I broke up. While I was in jail. She didn’t want to break up with me though.” He laughed sadly. “She came to visit me every week, wrote me all the time. She’d tell me that she loved me and that she’ll wait for me to get out. It was all too much for me. She deserved better. So I told her to move on with her life and forget about me. She didn’t want to at first, so I told her that I don’t love her anymore. I stopped answering her letters, stopped going to see her when she’d come visit. And eventually, she gave up. She stopped coming... And I never heard of her again.”  
  
     “Bloody Hell, mate...”  
  
     “I don’t regret it. I had nothing to offer her anyway. She’s better off without me.” He sounded like he really believed that, which truly broke Paul’s heart. The waiter returned, bringing their food with him, and the sadness that had taken over John seemed to vanish into thin air. “Thank God!” he said, smiling up at the waiter. “I really needed some food to shut me up right about now. You came just in time.”  
  
     The man smiled back at him, even if he clearly didn’t understand what John was talking about. Paul did though. John liked keeping his true thoughts and emotions hidden. He had always walked around with multiple masks pasted on his face and he’d only take them off very rarely, in front of very special people. Paul was proud to be one of those people. However, John felt strained without his masks, and he’d always put them back on right after taking them off. That entire day, his masks had been really shaky, falling off at random moments and revealing his true self. It was probably tiring for him.  
  
     They started eating and none of them said anything for a while, just enjoying the food and the silence. Paul thought about everything John had been through and wondered what it would have been like if he wouldn’t have left. Would he have been able to change anything? Would it have been better? Could John’s life have been better? He didn’t know. He’d often wondered if he and John would have found success if they’d stayed together and tried harder, if he would have actually ended up landing a record deal and making a career in music. He’d never been able to answer that question, but not knowing didn’t bother him. But in that moment, not knowing was bothering him a lot. It tormented him not to know if he could have spared John a lot of pain and misery had he taken a different path in life.  
  
     “So how about you?” John eventually asked.  
  
     Paul was abruptly pulled out of his thoughts and it took him a moment to even fully process the fact that John had started talking again. “I’m sorry, what?”  
  
     John chuckled while cutting into his steak. “Where were you, mate? It’s like you just landed back on Earth.”  
  
     “I was just thinking about... a lot of things,” Paul said, forcing a smile. It was better not to tell John what he’d been thinking of.  
  
     “I asked how about you,” John repeated himself. “You haven’t said much about yourself.”  
  
     “Nothing too exciting happened to me, to be honest,” Paul said, feeling almost a bit embarrassed about how uneventful and easy his life had been in comparison. “I went to University, studied Law, got a job soon after graduating and tried my best move up the ladder more and more each day.”  
  
     “You got friends down there? A woman? Any kids?” John asked.  
  
     “No, no and no,” Paul replied. “I have a lot of acquaintances but no real friends, you know? I’ve dated a few girls but nothing serious came out of it... My longest relationship lasted five months.”  
  
     “Wow, you’re worse than me at this shit,” John said, in his usual joking way. He didn’t appear to be amused though. He seemed dazed and a bit intrigued. “I don’t get it... Why try so hard if you’re not doing it for anyone? Just for yourself? Seems unlike you, I never knew you to be the selfish type.”  
  
     “I’m not...” Paul said.  
  
     “Then what’s the point? What good is having all this money if you have no one to share it with? And why put so much work and effort into building this successful career when you’re so alone?”  
  
     “I...” Paul started and then stopped, tilting his head to the side and thinking. John was making some really great points, ones that had never occurred to him before. It had caught him off guard and made him lose his appetite once he realised he didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know...” he ended up saying.  
  
     John looked like he’d expected him to say that, but for Paul, it was a revelation. It cast a light on everything that was wrong in his life and why he had been unable to feel happy even if he’d succeeded in everything he’d set up to do. It was the missing link, the piece to the puzzle that he’d lost somewhere along the way. He was all alone and he’d not fully realised it until that moment. He’d not allowed himself to realise it.  
         
     He refilled his glass of champagne while John kept eating, analysing his entire life in his mind. For so long he’d thought he had it all figured out and that everything was perfect, but it all been a lie. Nothing was perfect and nothing made any sense and he hated even the things he’d been so proud of before. The walls he’d built around himself had started to crack and he was terrified of what would happen if they would collapse.  
  
     “Aren’t you gonna finish eating?” John asked.  
  
     Paul looked down at his plate and shook his head. “No... I’m not hungry anymore.”  
  
     “Thought you were starving.”  
  
     “I was. I’m full now.”  
  
     John lifted his shoulders and kept eating, mumbling something that Paul did not understand. Paul looked at him, biting onto his lower lip. He’d always known that if he’d ever find John again it would be impactful, but he’d not expected it to be so revolutionary. He’d only been in Liverpool for two days and his life had already been thrown out of track. It almost amused him to think that he’d came there for a vacation, thinking that he was going to relax.  
  
     After John was done eating, they both smoked a few cigarettes and finished the bottle of champagne. They talked more, mostly about music, thinking it was better to just leave the personal things behind for a while. Paul got really engaged in the conversation, but in the back of his mind, he kept thinking about everything John had said earlier and working through all his newly discovered thoughts and feelings. He doubted he’d stop doing that for a while.  
  
     “Do you want to come upstairs?” he offered, after they left the restaurant.  
  
     “To your room, you mean?” John asked.  
  
     “Yeah. We could have some more drinks, talk a bit more... There’s only one bed but I doubt that would be a problem. It wouldn’t be the first time we slept next to each other.”  
  
     “No, it wouldn’t,” John smirked. “But I think we’ve drank and talked enough for one day. Maybe a bit too much. Besides, we have a big day tomorrow. You’re still in, right?”  
  
     “Of course I am. There’s no way I’m backing down after how much you’ve made me practice today.”  
  
     John nodded in approval. “Well, good. Then get some rest and come to my house tomorrow. We’ll practice some more before the show.”  
  
     “Alright,” Paul said, walking with him outside of the hotel. “You want me to give you a drive?”  
  
     “No, that’s fine. I’ll walk. It’s not that far and I want to make a few stops anyway.”  
  
     “A few stops where?”  
  
     “Are you my mum now?” John asked, sounding both irritated and amused. “Just don’t worry about me, mate. I’m a big boy, I’ll be okay.”  
  
     “I don’t doubt that.”  
  
     John dug his hands in his pockets and sighed. “Listen... About earlier. If anything of what I said disturbed you, I just –“  
  
     “It didn’t,” Paul stopped him before he could finish. He knew John wasn’t great at apologises and he didn’t want to let him struggle with it. “It didn’t disturb me. It just made me think a lot...”  
  
     “Is that a good thing?”  
  
     “Maybe... I don’t know yet.” John didn’t seem very convinced, so Paul placed his hand on his shoulder, squeezed it lightly and smiled. “Don’t worry about me. I’m a big boy, I’ll be okay,” he winked.  
  
     John left his head down and giggled. “Cheeky bastard,” he said. “I’ll see you tomorrow, alright?”  
  
     Paul agreed and let go of his shoulder. As John turned around and walked away, the smile on Paul’s face slowly vanished and he felt a sadness that made him want to cry. He only went back inside the Hotel after John’s silhouette had disappeared completely from his view.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: child abuse is heavily implied in this chapter, but there are no graphic descriptions of it. I thought I should mention that anyway tho, just in case.

     Wednesday, at 12:30 PM, Paul McCartney was still sleeping soundly. The sun coming in through the windows didn’t bother him, and he was even able to ignore the ringing of the phone for a while. He opened his eyes for a second, picked up the handset and slammed it back in, turning on the other side and going back to sleep. He didn’t want to wake up. His head was buzzing. The phone started ringing again and he covered his ears with the pillow, letting out a loud moan of frustration.  
  
     “What?” he asked irritated, once he finally picked up.  
  
     “Sir, I am sorry to bother you,” the girl from the reception spoke, her voice calm and smooth. “There are two gentlemen here, looking for you. Your father and your brother. Should I send them up to your room?”  
  
     “What the bloody Hell are they doing here...” Paul muttered, rubbing his tired eyes with the back of his hand.  
  
     The receptionist giggled. “I do not know, sir. Do you want me to ask them?”  
  
     “No, no,” he replied fast. “Just send them upstairs. Oh, and could you please have someone bring me some coffee? Strong, black, no sugar.”  
  
     “Of course, sir.”  
  
     “Thanks.”  
  
     He hung up and rolled over on his back, pressing his hands over his face. The events of the previous night came back to him all at once, playing in his mind like a movie. The dinner he’d had with John, the things John had said, returning to his room alone, drinking and tormenting himself with guilt and questions that he couldn’t answer until 6 in the morning. No matter how hard he tried, he’d been unable to stop his thoughts and rest like John had asked him to. He regretted how much he’d drank though. His entire body hurt as if he’d been ran over by a train. Drinking was all he seemed to do since he’d returned to Liverpool.  
  
     The knock in the door pulled him out of his thoughts and forced him to get out of bed. He ran his hands through his hair while walking, but that didn’t really help him look any more presentable. His brother and father stared at him with shock and concern when he opened up.  
  
     “Wow, you look like shit,” Mike said, stepping in the room.  
  
     “Well, good morning to you too,” Paul replied, holding the door open for his father to walk in as well.  
  
     “It’s not morning, son, it’s noon,” Jim informed him. There was a hint of scorn in his voice.  
  
     “Is it?” Paul asked, genuinely surprised. “I didn’t know, I just woke up.” He closed the door but didn’t lock it, remembering that he’d ordered coffee, which he hoped would get there soon. He needed it.  
  
     Mike sat down in one of the armchairs next to the window, picking up the empty bottle of Scotch that Paul had left on the table and swinging it in his hand. “You drank all this alone?”  
  
     “I mixed it with soda,” Paul said, as if that somehow made it better. He took the bottle from his brother and threw it in the trash. “I am sorry the place is a mess, I was not expecting you two.” If he’d known they’d come, he probably would have tried to drink less. He looked at his father, who was standing in the middle of the room, and he could tell the man was judging him. While Mike seemed just a bit amused, Jim was nowhere near pleased. “Dad, could you sit down? You’re making me uncomfortable.”  
  
     His father sat in the armchair across from Mike’s, placing his elbow on the table and crossing his legs. “Where were you yesterday?” he asked. “Your brother and I both called you a dozen times and you didn’t pick up. We had started to worry.”  
  
     Paul was silent for a moment, sitting on the bed with his hands tucked beneath his legs. He tried to think of a lie but he was too dizzy to make up anything believable, so he decided to just go with the truth. “I was with John all day,” he said, watching as his father’s expression turned from curios to disturbed in just a matter of seconds. Paul had forgotten how scary that was.  
  
      Jim turned to look at his younger son. “Please, tell me you didn’t have anything to do with this."  
  
     “I may have told Paul where to find John...” Mike confessed, looking down at his hands.  
  
     “Goddamn it, Mike!”  
  
     “I don’t see the harm in it, dad! They were so close and they haven’t seen each other in so long. I thought it would do them good to catch up.”  
  
     “It was good that they haven’t seen each other. Your brother finally made a life for himself and the last thing I need is for that little punk to fill his head with nonsense again!”  
  
     “John is not a little punk, dad. He’s an adult now. And so is Paul.”  
  
     “Of course you’d be on their side. I don’t know what I expected. You always were on their side.”  
  
     Paul sighed and looked down, shaking his head slowly in disappointment. It wasn’t like he had expected something else, but it still hurt to know nothing had changed and that his father was still as judgemental as he’d always been. Just as he was starting to wish that he would disappear, someone knocked on the door and he thanked God for it in his mind.  
  
     “I ordered some coffee from downstairs. Do you two want anything?” he asked, getting up.  
  
     His father and brother both shook their heads ‘no’ and he shrugged, opening the door and retrieving his coffee. It smelled delicious and he really hoped it would help him clear his head a little. He tipped the staff and thanked him before closing the door with his leg and turning around to face his family again. Mike seemed uneasy while Jim looked just flat out pissed off, and that atmosphere was the last thing Paul needed in that moment.  
  
     “What did you two do all day?” Jim asked, as Paul pulled a chair from the back of the room closer to the table so he could sit down next to them.  
  
     “We talked a lot,” he replied. “John taught me some of his new songs. I will play with him tonight.”  
  
     “Seriously?” Mike excitedly asked. “Where?”  
  
     “I don’t know, actually,” Paul laughed, scratching the back of his head with his hand. “John didn’t tell me the name of the club. It’s one of the places where he plays very often though. It will be amazing, we will –“  
  
     “I honestly hope you’re joking, Paul,” Jim cut through.   
  
     The cold, serious tone of his voice sounded like a warning. _‘Just take it all back now,’_ the warning said, and if that conversation had taken place a few years or even a few months before that moment, Paul might have listened to it. “No, dad, I’m not joking.” He replied, lighting up a red Marlboro.  
  
     “You’re not planning to move back here, are you?”  
  
     “I’m not. This will probably be just a one time thing. But it’s something I really want to do so don’t you ruin it for me, alright?”  
  
     He tried his best to remain calm and not come off as disrespectful or rude. His father could be a scary man when he wanted to be and though Paul liked to tell himself that he wasn’t intimidated by him at all anymore, it wasn’t exactly true. “I knew that you coming back here was a bad idea.”  
  
     “Is that why you always suggested I go somewhere else whenever I told you I want to come back for a holiday or a vacation? You were purposefully trying to keep me away from Liverpool, so that I wouldn’t see John?”  
  
     “We both know that he’s not good for you.”  
  
     “I never believed that. You did. To me, he was the best...”  
  
     “He’s already got into your head again, hasn’t he?”  
  
     Paul rolled his eyes, smoking his cigarette silently and drinking his coffee. John was a subject him and his dad had not touched since he’d moved to London. It was too dangerous to dive into it, because it turned into an ocean of bullshit really fast every time. Paul had drowned in that ocean enough to know he should just avoid it. But after meeting him again, talking to him and being so close to him, he found it hard to keep pretending like John had meant nothing in his life. He didn’t want to keep pretending.  
  
     “Dad, let’s not fight, okay? If you want to come see us play, you are more than welcome to join. If not, that’s your problem. I will do this thing anyway and, to be honest, I don’t care if you don’t like it. My life is my own and you don’t rule it. Not anymore.”  
  
     His inner child dreaded those words as they came out of his mouth; he could almost hear that little voice screaming in his brain ‘Don’t say that!’, but he ignored it. And it felt good. Hell, it felt amazing. It was like finally bandaging a wound that he’d been ignoring for far too long.  
  
     Jim stared at him shocked and offended. “I am still your father, you know?”  
  
     “Yes, you are. I never said you weren’t. You are my father,” Paul agreed, with a small nod. “You are just not my master, which is what you’ve tried to be my whole life. I am not your fucking property.”  
  
     “Damn...” Mike said in a whisper.  
  
     “You can join the conversation whenever you want,” Paul told him, turning to look at him. He wished his brother would back him up.  
  
     Mike threw his hands up and shook his head. “Nah, I would rather stay out of this one.”        
  
     “How dare you?” Jim said, completely ignoring his younger son. His gaze was still fixated on Paul, his body rigid as he tried to control his inner rage. “All I ever did was try to look after you, you ungrateful little brat!”  
  
     “All you ever wanted was to control me, dad!” Paul replied, raising his voice to cover up his father’s insults. “You didn’t care about what I liked or what I thought or felt. You didn’t want a son, you wanted a puppet.”  
  
     “Watch it, boy.”  
  
     “Or what? What are you gonna do? Cane me? Knock me down? I’d like to see you try.”  
  
     “This is not what we came here for,” Mike stepped in, trying to calm down the spirits.  
  
     “What did you came for anyway?” Paul asked.  
  
     “We wanted to see you, for one,” Mike started, clearing his voice and shifting a bit in his seat. “And I wanted to invite you to –“  
  
     The phone rang before Mike could get to finish his sentence and Paul got up, with his cigarette in his mouth. “Hold that thought for a moment,” he told his brother before picking up. “Hello?”  
  
     _“Where the Hell are you, Paul?”_  John’s voice came from the phone.  
  
     “I am still at the Hotel,” he answered.  
  
     _“Obviously, since you picked up, you bloody fool,”_ John said and Paul laughed. _“You were supposed to be here by now, we have to practice.”  
_  
     “I know. I’m sorry, mate... I woke up late and then I had an unexpected visit.”  
  
     _“Well, are you coming or what?”  
  
_      “Yes! Just give me half an hour and I’ll be there.”  
  
     _“You better or I’ll cripple you.”_  
  
     Paul laughed again. “You won’t have to. I’ll be there soon, okay? See you.”  
  
     “It was that punk, wasn’t it?” Jim asked, as soon as Paul hung up.  
  
     “He has a name,” Paul said, walking to the table and putting off his cigarette in the ashtray. “His name is John. Learn to use it, please. But yes, it was him. And I have to go soon, me and him have to practice.”  
  
     “You are not going to him. And you are not singing in any dirty, cheap club either. Do you hear me? I won't allow my son to make a fool out of himself that way.”  
  
     Paul grabbed his suitcase and placed it on the bed, opening it and looking through his clothes, trying to decide what he should wear. “With all due respect, dad,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Jim, “I’m a bit too old for this shit, don’t you think?”  
  
     “Just because you’ve grown a few inches that doesn’t mean you can just do whatever you want.”  
  
     “I’m not sure if you realise this or not, but I am a grown fucking man now.”  
  
     “Then act like one!” Jim almost yelled, getting up from the armchair. “What grown man wants to waste his time singing in clubs?”  
  
     “One that loves music,” Paul said, picking up the clothes he wanted and then slamming his suitcase back close. “I will never forgive you for trying to take that from me, you know? Never. Now please, get out.”  
  
     “I am not going anywhere and neither are you. Sit down. We have to talk.”  
  
     “I am done talking to you.”  
  
     He turned around and walked into the bathroom, closing and locking the door behind him. His heart was pounding inside his chest. “Didn’t you hear how he’s talking to me?!” he heard his dad telling Mike. He took a deep breath in and started taking his clothes off. Standing up for himself felt good, but it wasn’t easy at all, and though bandaging the wound made it hurt less, it also involved looking at the wound, acknowledging it’s there, and he hated that. He’d been trying really hard to avoid that because he couldn’t bear the feelings that came with it. The self-pity and helplessness, the anger and hatred. Most of all the regret. He enjoyed a lot more the numbness and emptiness that came with pretending that everything was fine and that his past did not exist.   
  
     _‘I can’t pretend any longer...’_ He told himself. _‘If I do, I’ll disappear.’  
  
_      He took a shower, hoping that his father and Mike would both be gone by the time he finished. He could still hear their voices coming from the other room when he was done though. _‘Typical...’_ he thought, using a towel to dry himself. His father was a very stubborn man, after all. Paul knew that it was not going to be easy for him to leave. He knew that Jim would try to stop him.  
  
     “Not this time,” he said out loud, looking at himself in the mirror. “I’m not gonna disappoint John again because of him.”  
  
     When he walked out of the bathroom, he was prepared to fight anything in order to get out of there and go to John’s house, but at least half of his new found courage melted away as soon as his gaze met Jim’s. The man was looking at him as if he’d kill him if he could. That look in his eyes reminded Paul of screams, threats and punishments. It brought back all the fear and pain, the metallic smell of blood, the salty taste of tears, the sound of his own sobs during all the nights he’d fallen asleep crying. He looked away and walked to the nightstand, hoping that what he was feeling and thinking wasn’t showing up on his face.  
  
     “Paul, I’m telling you for the last time. You are not leaving,” his father firmly said, as Paul grabbed his wallet and car keys and stuffed them in his pocket. “Sit down. Let’s talk.”  
  
     “We can talk tomorrow,” Paul told him, still avoiding looking at him.  
  
     “Or on Friday,” Mike suggested. “What I wanted to tell you before John called is that I want to invite you to dinner on Friday. A lot of family members will be there, they all want to see you. Do you think you can make it?”  
  
     “Yes, sure, “ Paul smiled. “Sounds like a great idea, actually. I will be there. But now I really have to go.” He turned to leave, but his father grabbed his wrist into his hand, squeezing it painfully and stopping him. “Let go of me.”  
  
     “Why won’t you listen to me? I only want what’s best for you, damn it!”  
  
     “No, dad. You only want what you think is best for me. And you’re too damn arrogant to admit that most of the time you’re wrong.”  
  
     Paul expected to receive a dramatic slap across the face, like in movies and novels, but that didn’t happen. Not because Jim wasn’t angry enough to hit him – he definitely was – but because he had never slapped him in the first place. It had always been either harsh, severe punishments or threats of punishments to come, nothing in between, and he probably realised that none of those options would have worked in that moment. While he still liked to think of Paul as a child and treat him as one, he was very much aware of the fact that his son had grown into a man; a man who was done with his bullshit and ready to fight back.  
  
     “You’ll regret this,” he said, finally letting go of his wrist.  
  
     Paul took a step back and looked up at him. “The only thing I ever regretted in my life has been listening to you.”  
  
     That hurt his father. Paul could see it in his eyes. He didn’t care though. He opened the door and left, walking fast down the hall. His heart was still racing and his mind was being attacked by memories that he didn’t know how to push back anymore. They were coming at him like an avalanche, threatening to bury him alive. He felt like crying. He felt like screaming. He felt like crushing something apart.  
  
     “My father and brother are still upstairs. Please, make sure to go lock my room after they leave,” he told the receptionist when he got in the main hall.  
  
     She assured him she would and he gave her the best fake smile that he could master before walking away. John’s house was not far, but he drove so fast, he made it there in about five minutes. He always drove fast when he was angry. It was a dangerous habit that he could not control.  
  
     He knocked hard on John’s door, almost punching into it. His friend opened up and stared at him as if he was mental. “Don’t break down my fucking door, mate.”  
  
     Paul walked past him and into the living room, without even bothering to say hello. “My dad came by and started trying to order me around. It was such a drag. I thought he wasn’t even gonna let me leave. I bloody hate him!”  
  
     “Are you alright?”  
  
     “No! I am fucking angry! I don’t even know the last time I’ve been this angry. And I don’t even know why I’m so angry, you know? God, I think I might explode!”  
  
     John calmly made his way to the couch and sat down. He seemed completely unbothered by the hysterical crises that Paul was having in the middle of his flat. “Come here,” he said, opening his arms.  
  
     “What?” Paul asked confused, while approaching him.  
  
     “Come here, give me a hug.”  
  
     Paul sat down next to John and sighed. “I do not need a bloody hug, mate.”  
  
     “Yes, you do.” Before he could protest again, John wrapped his left arm around his shoulders and pulled him to his chest, holding him tightly. Paul tensed up and felt like struggling, but he calmed down after just a few seconds. “Touching is good,” John said.  
  
     Paul squeezed the soft material of John’s t-shirt in his hand, closing his eyes and allowing his body to relax. All the negative emotions started slowly disappearing, moving somewhere at the back of his mind, together with the memories that he had been unable to push back. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had hugged him like that, so tightly and lovingly and secure, without asking any questions, without wanting anything in return, simply because they knew he needed it, even if he had no idea he did. He couldn’t remember it because no one had ever done that before.  
  
     “We can stay like this for as long as you need.”  
  
     “We might be here for a long time, then.”  
  
     “That’s alright,” John said, caressing Paul’s head tenderly with his right hand. “We have time.”  
  
     Paul moved his head up and down, brushing his cheek on John’s chest and moving a bit closer to him. “Thank you...” he whispered.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Sapphire is a fictional club that I created. It doesn't exist in real life, just in this AU. Thought I'd make that clear in case any of you wonder why the Hell you never heard of this club, lol XD

     “This is going to be amazing!” John said.  
  
     “Yeah...” Paul replied, with much less enthusiasm.  
  
     “Don’t be nervous. You’ll do great, you’ll see.”  
  
     “There’s a lot more people here than I expected...”  
  
     “I should have probably warned you that this club is bigger.”  
  
     “Yes, you should have.”  
  
     Paul bit his lower lip, staring at the crowd through the cracked door of the backstage room. The Sapphire had not been around when he was a teenager. Actually, he had not even been aware of that Club’s existence until they had arrived there. It was larger and fancier than most other clubs from Liverpool, but the entrance was free and the drinks were affordable; so, naturally, the place was packed every night with people of all ages.  
  
     “They are not a tough crowd,” John said, reassuringly. “I’ve been playing here at least once a week since 1965, when the club first opened. They know me well.”  
  
     “But they don’t know me.” Paul sighed and turned to look at John. “We didn’t even practice much today.”  
  
     “We practiced enough.”  
  
     It had not been enough. He and John had spent almost six hours together that day, out of which more than half had been wasted on John trying to comfort him. The fight he’d had with his father had awoken a sadness and anger inside Paul that he’d been unaware he possessed. It had turned him into a mess. John had been so patient and tender to him, in his own way, managing to calm him down and help him pull himself back together. He’d held him really tight and caressed him, told him exactly what Paul needed to hear and reminded him that he was not alone. They had not practiced for more than two hours and Paul had messed up on at least two songs on more than one occasion. It had not been enough at all and he knew it. He was sure John knew it as well; he just didn’t seem to care.  
  
     “I can’t do this,” Paul told him. His heart was racing with anxiety. He felt so unprepared and out of place. The more he thought about what he was planning to do, the less sense it made. Singing in front of people again sounded like such a terrible idea in his mind. And the leather pants and jacket that John had borrowed him – and almost forced him to wear – were not making him feel any better. John had said it would help him feel like his old self, but it wasn’t. It just made him feel like a foolish adult trying to look like a teenager again and failing. “Maybe you should go out there alone and I can play with you another time, when I’m more ready.”  
  
     “Fuck that,” John said. “You’re ready now. You just need a bit more confidence, that’s all.” He pulled out a little transparent bag full of pills from his pocket and smiled, taking a few steps back to grab one of the water bottles that were on the desk in front of the mirror. He took two of the pills out and stuffed the bag back inside his pocket, walking to Paul and handing him one of them. “This will help. It doesn’t taste too great so swallow it fast.”  
  
     “Drugs?” Paul asked, staring at his friend in disbelief. “Seriously? This is your solution?”  
  
     “Yup,” John nodded, before taking the pill. “What? Is this type of behaviour beneath you, mister lawyer?” Paul raised his eyebrow and John giggled. “Do you object?”  
  
     “Give me that thing,” Paul said, grabbing the water bottle from him. He threw the pill in his mouth without thinking about it too much and washed it down with a big chug of water. It went down his throat before he could even taste it. John laughed but he seemed really happy, even a bit proud. “You satisfied now?”  
  
     “Hell yeah!” He slapped Paul’s shoulder friendly and took the water bottle from his hands. “We still have like half an hour until the show starts. It might kick in until then, if you’re lucky.”  
  
     “What does it do?”  
  
     “It makes you feel like you own the fucking place!”  
  
     Paul smiled. That sounded like something he did need in that moment. It was just not something that he would have thought of trying on his own, just like going back on stage or wearing leather ever again. He envied John, who had somehow managed to preserve his youthful spirit so intact. He’d lost his long ago.  
  
     “You’re fucking beautiful, you know?” John told him all of a sudden.  
  
     At first, Paul thought he may have heard him wrong. After all, it wasn’t like John to give people compliments, or to tell guys that he found them pretty. “I’m sorry, what?”  
  
     “You’re beautiful,” John repeated. “You question yourself too much and you shouldn’t. Even if you sounded like crap, which you don’t, by the way, it wouldn’t really matter. You could just sit there and all the birds would go crazy for that pretty face of yours. Some blokes too, probably.”  
  
     Paul laughed and lowered his head a bit, feeling flattered. “Thank you, mate. I appreciate your vote of confidence.”  
  
     “Any time,” John winked at him with a big smile.  
  
     “You’re here already,” a man said, entering the room through the slightly opened door that lead to the stage and shutting it behind him. “Good.”  
  
     They both turned to look at him and Paul took a moment to scan him from head to toe. The man was around six feet tall, with short, combed back blonde hair and blue eyes. He seemed to be in his late 30s, maybe early 40s at most. The expensive black suit he was wearing made Paul think of a large variety of rich men he’d met, ranging from business men to leaders of mafia clans. He had a smirk of superiority plastered on his face and, if Paul had been alone with him, he would have been doubtful about whether or not he could trust him. John, however, seemed happy to see him.  
  
     “Willy!” he said, shaking the man’s hand. “I was wondering when you’d show up, you little bastard.”  
  
     The man left out an amused and slightly bothered chuckle - that so many people so often had when dealing with John – and shook his hand back. “Well, I’m here now.” He sounded as if he had definitely been born in Liverpool and had spent a lot of time travelling. His accent was there, but only slightly. “Is he your friend?”  
  
     “Yes,” John nodded, tapping Paul’s back. “Pretty, isn’t he?”  
  
     “Certainly,” the man agreed, “but can he sing?”  
  
     “Of course he can bloody sing, mate, what kind of fuckin’ question is that?”  
  
     Paul laughed and shook his head, trying to ignore John. “I’m Paul McCartney,” he introduced himself, shaking the man’s hand politely. “I actually haven’t played in a long while, but John and I used to be in a band when we were teenagers.”  
  
     “William Palmer,” the man introduced himself as well, squeezing Paul’s hand in his for a moment before letting go. “I am the owner of the club. John is probably the best act we’ve ever had, it’s madness whenever he’s here. In the good way, of course,” he laughed. “If you’re even half as good as him, then I know I have nothing to worry about.”  
  
     “He’s a lot better than me, actually,” John commented.  
  
     Paul giggled nervously. “That’s rubbish, I’m not,” he said. _‘Goddamn it, John, don’t give people such high expectations of me!’_ he added in his mind. He hated it when people did that. Even in London, he’d many times be introduced to new clients as the best lawyer in England and it always made him cringe. He loved being praised, but if he couldn’t identify with what was being said about him, it just made him uncomfortable. “John thinks too highly of me.”  
  
     “I don’t. You just underestimate yourself a lot.”  
  
     Paul shot John a look that warned him to shut the Hell up, but it wasn’t angry or aggressive in any way. “You two remind me of my brother and I,” William said, making them both look at him again. “It’s nice seeing such a beautiful friendship. I’m sure you’ll both be amazing together.”  
  
     “You can bet your fucking money on it,” John confidently assured him.  
  
     “I am, in a way.”  
  
     “Oh yeah. That’s true.”  
  
     They all laughed and Paul smiled at William. He had been too fast to judge the man; it seemed like he was actually really nice. He talked to them about the payment and the schedule for a bit, before leaving and telling them that they had ten more minutes before they should go on stage. They had to sing for six hours, with ten minutes breaks after each 30 minutes. _‘That’s exhausting...’_ Paul thought. He didn’t tell that to either John or William though. He didn’t want to seem like he was complaining. Besides, they were both going to get paid quite well for their show.  
  
     “I don’t want any money for this,” Paul said, while fixing his hair in the mirror. “You can keep my part too.”  
  
     “Are you serious?” John asked. “That doesn’t sound fair to me. The both of us will sing just as much. It’s not like you’ll just stand behind me looking pretty.”  
  
     Paul giggled and turned to look at him. “I don’t need the money,” he explained, before facing himself in the mirror again. “I’m only doing this for you, you know? And for the music.”  
  
     John nodded slowly behind him, a fake look of exaggerated gratitude on his face. “Both me and the music greatly appreciate your efforts, kind sir,” he said, pressing his hand on his chest dramatically.         
  
      “Piss off,” Paul giggled, watching his friend in the mirror. “I mean this though. I want you to have the money, okay?”  
  
     “Arrite, as you wish, mate,” John told him, on a serious tone this time. He grabbed his guitar and placed it around his shoulders carelessly, playing a few chords just to make sure it was well tuned. “We’ll open with A Hard Day’s Night, to get them in the mood for rocking out with us. We can hit them later with some of the slower, sadder songs. There’s a lot of teens here tonight and they generally don’t like that kind of depressing shit too much.”  
  
     “Sounds good to me,” Paul approved. He looked at himself once more, taking a deep breath in, before grabbing his own guitar and walking next to John. “I think I’m ready.”  
  
     “This is not an audition, you know?” His friend reminded him. “You don’t have to be so scared. Christ! It’s like you’re expecting them to throw rocks at you.”  
  
     “They ever do that?” Paul asked, slightly worried.  
  
     “All the time,” John said, with the most serious look on his face. “They all come in with their pockets full of stones just for this. You are going to get bloody murdered, mate. I should have told you sooner. I am so sorry.”  
  
     He rolled his eyes but laughed, slapping John’s shoulder playfully. “I hate you.”  
  
     “No, you don’t,” John smirked, gaining a small smile in return. “Shall we?”  
  
     Paul agreed silently, trying to mentally prepare and encourage himself. John opened the door widely and walked out, being greeted by a round of cheers and applause from everyone in the club. _‘They really love him,’_ Paul thought. He was really impressed by the reaction everyone had to John whenever he’d step on a stage. He may not have been on the cover of Rolling Stones, but he was famous, if only in Liverpool, and Paul was very proud of him.  
  
     He stood there in the door frame, watching John interacting with the crowd, almost forgetting that he was supposed to join him. He felt like he wasn’t needed out there, but John, who clearly did not share his opinion, walked back when he realised that he wasn’t moving and grabbed his hand, pulling him on the stage with him. People stopped cheering and stared at them, obviously confused. Paul smiled and waved at them awkwardly, feeling a knot forming in his stomach. _‘They hate me already,’_ he thought, taking a few steps back to connect both his and John’s guitars to the amps.  
  
     “Good evening, everyone!” John said in one of the microphones, bringing the crowd back to life. “I’d like you all to welcome my good friend Paul, who had agreed to join me tonight. He’s a bit shy so give him a big round of applause!” They all stared clapping enthusiastically, while Paul slowly walked back to the front of the stage. “There we go, that’s better!”  
  
     The big smile on John’s face was the only thing that kept Paul from turning around and running away from there. John was glowing with excitement and Paul would have done anything to keep him that way forever. There was no one in the world that he could think of who deserved happiness more than John.  
  
     Their eyes met and they nodded at each other once before starting. The crowd exploded into cheers and screams from the first note. They obviously loved that song. Paul was sure that they may not enjoy it as much anymore when it came to the parts that John had assigned for him to sing, but he was proven wrong. They still liked it and a few girls in the front rows yelled even louder upon hearing his voice. John gave him an ‘told you’ kind of look and he smiled. _‘It’s okay,’_ Paul told himself in his mind. _‘I got this.’_  
  
     He was a lot more confident during the second song and by the time they started the third, it was like he had never doubted himself at all to begin with. Everyone was going crazy for them, even the guys, and Paul felt stupid for having been so scared. While being there, he remembered how happy singing made him feel as a teenager and how he used to believe that his place was in the spotlight, on a stage. That rush of adrenaline, that joy, that pride... He thought he’d left them all so far behind, they would never reach him anymore, and yet there they were, catching up to him at the speed of light.  
  
     After about twenty minutes, he started interacting with the crowd, announcing the songs that they would play next in John’s place and asking people to scream louder and clap their hands. He gave one of the best performances of his life, fueled by a joy and energy that seemed to sprung out of nowhere. Everything was beautiful. Everyone was beautiful. All the colors around him looked brighter, shinier, and he wasn't sure if it was because of the lights in that club or because he was just so damn happy. When William announced them that it was time to take a break, he felt kind of disappointed. He wanted to stay there and to keep on singing.  
  
     “I can’t believe that went so well!” he told John, as soon as they were back inside the backstage room.  
  
     “You were bloody incredible, mate! You were better than even I expected!”  
  
     “I was, wasn’t I?” He licked his lips, nodding and pacing around. He couldn’t bring himself to stand still. “I want to go back on the stage,” he said, looking at the door they had just walked in through. “I want to sing some more.”  
  
     “Oh, you will sing some more, don’t worry. I am so fucking proud of you! You’re the fucking best!”    
  
     Paul opened his mouth to thank John, but before he could say anything, his friend put both of his hands on his face and pulled his head closer, pressing a kiss on his lips. It was fast, sudden and unexpected, but sweet at the same time. It gave Paul no time to react or protest and left him baffled even after John pulled back.  
  
     “What the bloody Hell, mate?” He wiped his lips with the back of his hand. If any other man would have dared to do that, he would have been upset, furious even, probably truly disgusted as well. But it was John. It was okay, cause it was his John.  
  
     “Sorry,” John laughed. “I couldn’t help it. I’m fucking lit! Must be the drugs.”  
  
     Paul had completely forgotten about the small pills they had both taken before the show had started. It explained the restlessness he felt and why he couldn’t stop moving. “Just don’t do it again, alright?” he said, lighting up a cigarette.  
  
     John took it from his hands and took a puff out of it, smirking when he saw the upset look on Paul’s face. “You know you wanted me to kiss you,” he teased.  
  
     “I did not!” Paul denied. John had such a smug look on his face, it was infuriating, but he couldn’t help but find it kind of cute and funny.  
  
     “You so did.”    
  
     The break ended fast and they returned back on stage in the loud acclamations of all the customers. Paul heard a familiar voice calling out his name and he looked through the crowed until he spotted Mike, sitting in the back, waving at him while holding a bottle of beer. A smile appeared on his face and he waved back. He had not expected his brother to show up and seeing him there brought him a lot more happiness than he thought it would. Mike had only heard him singing through the house, but never on a stage and never together with John.  
  
     During the two songs that Paul sang on his own, some of the girls went wild and one of them even tried to climb on the stage to get to him. John had been right. Playing in Liverpool was a lot worse than playing in Hamburg had been in the past. People seemed to have no sort of self-control. Under normal circumstances, Paul would have found it frightening, but in that moment, when he was so taken over by the drugs and the excitement, he couldn’t have cared less. The enthusiasm of his new fans only became a problem during the second break, when he tried to make his way through them to get to Mike.  
  
     His name was being called all over the place and there were hands coming out from every direction, caressing his head and back and trying to grab him. He kept muttering little ‘excuse me’s and ‘pardon’s while gently pushing the girls away, hearing them pout and sigh at being ignored. Most of them gave up and went to John instead and Paul silently thanked God for that in his mind.  
  
     “Mike!” he said, once he finally reached his brother. He wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug, feeling happier than ever to see him. “You found the club, huh? I knew you would if you wanted to.”  
  
     “Why did you never tell me you’re so good??” Mike asked, ignoring everything else he had said.  
  
     Paul left out a chuckle at his brother’s revelation. “You never asked.”  
  
     “Bloody Hell, mate! That was honestly the best thing I have ever heard in my life! You and John are smashing together! If you’d be making records, I’d buy all of them, I swear.”  
  
     “Thank you,” Paul said. “Truly. I appreciate that a lot.” He heard a lot of unintelligible chatter coming from behind him and he turned around to see John talking to a bunch of girls that had surrounded him. He seemed to be handling it well, so Paul turned back to face his brother. “Is dad still angry?” he asked.  
  
     “Oh, yeah,” Mike nodded, taking a sip of his beer. “He’s been foaming all day, it took me forever to calm him down. I only managed to make him relax because I promised I’d get you to that dinner on Friday.”  
  
     “Typical...” He wasn’t even slightly surprised to hear that and he really didn't want to think of it too much.  
  
     “You don’t have to come if you don’t want. I just assured him you would to calm him down. You can just say you’re busy or whatever.”  
  
     Paul considered it for a moment. Avoiding his father would have definitely been less stressful and generally better for his mental health, but he was well aware that he couldn’t run from him forever. That’s the trouble with family issues. Sooner or later, you have to face them, and the more you let it drag, the worse it becomes.“No, I’ll come and talk to him,” he decided. “I want him to stop treating me like a child and I won’t get that by hiding from him.”  
  
     “Johnny is coming this way,” Mike warned him.  
  
     Paul turned around again to see John approaching them with two bottles of beer in his hands and the girls following him close behind, giggling and whispering things in his ears. Most them looked really young, but John didn’t seem to mind that. He was looking at them as if he planned to take them all to his bed.  
  
     “These lovely ladies wanted to meet you, Macca,” he announced, stopping in front of Paul.  
  
     “He is even more stunning up close! Oh my God!”  
  
     Paul smiled, blushing as the girls circled him. The one that had spoken introduced herself as Valarie and asked him what he’d be doing that night. He wasn’t used to women throwing themselves at him or trying to pick him up, let alone young teenagers, so he just stared at her in shock and confusion until John intervened to save him.  
  
     “Now, now, girls, you will have to take it easy on him. He’s new to all this.”  
  
     “Where did you keep him until now?” a short, ginger head asked, her eyes sparkling as she gazed at Paul.  
  
     “In my secret basement,” John joked and everyone laughed. “I had him chained up good and I was waiting for the proper moment to reveal him to the world.”  
  
     “Oh, John...” Valerie said, still cackling. It seemed like she was very familiar with John’s ironic sense of humour.  
  
     John handed Paul one of the bottles of beer and wrapped his arm around his shoulders, spinning around with him so their backs were turned to the girls. “Which ones should we take with us after the show?” he softly asked into Paul’s ear.  
  
     “Huh?”  
  
     “I never leave without at least a girl after a show,” John explained silently, as Paul drank some of his beer. “It’s one of my rules. I was thinking we could each take two of them, go to my flat and have an orgy.”  
  
     Paul left out a dry chuckle and shook his head. “That is not happening.”  
  
     “One each then?”  
  
     “Wha- No!” He raised his voice, which he had not meant to, so he took a deep breath in and moved a bit closer to John. “I don’t want to have sex with any of the girls here, okay?” he whispered to him.  
  
     “You’re no fun,” John pouted.  
  
     “He’s right, you know,” came a comment from Mike, who had been listening in on their conversation without any of them realising.  
  
     “Well, forgive me for being selective and not sleeping with every girl I come across.”  
  
     “I am deeply disappointed in you, mate,” John told him, with a fake irritation.  
  
     “Fuck off,” Paul replied, knowing John didn’t meant it.

 

                                                                                                                             ***

  
  
     During the next five hours, John and Paul got off the stage during each break and went to the bar, ordering shots and whiskey. After the 6th time they did that, Paul started feeling very nauseated and he went to the bathroom, thinking that he might throw up, but he didn’t manage to. It was like the alcohol was stuck somewhere between his throat and his stomach and it was refusing to move from that spot. Nothing looked pretty or colourful anymore by that point and he had lost both his confidence and his excitement. The world had gone back to how it was before. No. It had become darker. He didn’t just feel insecure, like he had in the beginning. He felt truly depressed. He ignored it though, since he had to go back on stage. The show must go on, regardless of your feelings or problems. That’s what being an artist is all about, and thought he had stopping thinking of himself as an artist a long time ago, he still remembered that.  
  
     By the time the concert ended he felt completely exhausted and drained, as if all life had been sucked right out of him. He threw himself in the couch of the backstage room and wished to never get up again.  
  
     “I don’t know how you do this almost every day, Johnny,” he said, staring up at the ceiling and smoking a cigarette. “I am so burned out, I don’t want to see another guitar for at least a month.”  
  
     “I got used to it,” John shrugged, sitting down on the armrest of the couch. “You’ll get used to it too, you’ll see.”  
  
     “I doubt. I’m getting old. This isn’t for me anymore.”  
  
     “Oh yeah. You’re like what, 27 now?” John asked and Paul nodded. “You should seriously start thinking of a retirement plan, mate. Your life is almost over, you are bloody done for. There’s nothing ahead anymore at this point.”  
  
     Paul laughed, but he didn’t sound amused. It was a sad, tired laugh. “You don’t get it...”  
  
     “You’re not happy anymore. You’ve been glowing all night and now it’s like you ran out of batteries.”  
  
     “I’m not high anymore.”  
       
     “I can tell,” John sighed. “Are you sure you don’t want to take at least one girl home?”  
  
     “Yes, I’m very sure.” Paul pulled himself up from the couch and walked to the ashtray that was on the table in front of the mirror. “And, actually, I would appreciate it if you didn’t take any of them home either.”  
  
     “Why?”  
  
     “Because I was hoping I could crush at your place tonight,” he said, putting the cigarette off. “I want us to spend as much time as we can together, since I’ll only be here for a few more days.”  
  
     John was silent for a moment and Paul didn’t know if it was because remembering they would soon part again was making him sad or because he was pondering whether or not pass on the girls that night. He was betting on the latter though. “Alright, sure,” he eventually accepted. “I’ll just go get rid of them fast so that we can leave. You wait here.”  
  
     Sitting there alone was the last thing Paul wanted, but he nodded in agreement and watched John leave. He then turned to look at himself in the mirror, staring judgementally at his own reflection. “What the Hell are you even doing?” he asked, in a whisper. He couldn’t shake that feeling that everything he was doing was wrong. That he should stop. That he was not a kid anymore. That he needed to act responsible and be a man.  
  
     _‘Dreams and hopes won’t put food on the table.’  
  
     ‘You need a career, not a guitar.’  
  
     ‘This is fucking pathetic.’  
  
     ‘John is only going to drag you down.’  
  
_      “No!” he said, out loud. “I don’t believe that. These are not my thoughts. This is not how I think.”  
  
     _‘Of course it is,’_ his reflection seemed to say. _‘Deep down, you know it is.’  
  
_      “Shut the Hell up.” He punched the mirror hard, causing it to crack with a loud noise. That made the thoughts stop and brought him a calm that he had never felt before. It was more than just calm. It was numbness. He pulled his hand back and stared at the blood on his knuckles. He didn’t feel any pain, but he knew he should. _‘What the fuck is happening to me...’  
  
_      “What's going on?” John asked, storming into the room. Paul turned to look at him with blood dripping from his hand onto the floor and a blank expression on his face. “What did you do? Did you break the mirror?”  
  
     “I got a bit angry,” he calmly said.  
  
     John crossed the space between them fast and took Paul's hand in his gently, looking at the cuts. “Angry at what?” He sounded worried, panicked even.  
  
     “Myself,” Paul answered. “I’m sorry,” he added, looking at the broken mirror and at the blood and pieces of glass from the floor. “I didn’t mean to make a mess.”  
  
     “This isn’t about that, Macca! What the Hell, mate!”  
  
     “It doesn’t hurt,” he continued, on the same calm, monotone voice. “I’ll be alright.” He pulled his hand away from John and grabbed a towel that was on the table, wrapping it around his knuckles. As he was squeezing it tight to stop the bleeding, he caught a glance with the corner of his eye of a small group of girls that were standing in the door frame, watching him with a horrified expression on their faces. “You should probably ask them to leave,” he suggested.  
  
     “Go away,” John told the girls, turning around to face them. “Go home, there’s nothing to see here.” The girls walked away slowly, whispering to each other. “Give me the keys to your car,” he requested, extending his hand. “We’re leaving too. I’ll be driving.”  
  
     Paul reached into his pocket with his left, unwounded hand and pulled out his keys. John took them fast and then grabbed onto Paul’s left arm, pulling him out of the club with him. He seemed angry, but Paul knew that was just John’s way of reacting to stress and worry. The ride back to John’s apartment was fast and silent. None of them said anything. John focused on the road, with one hand on the wheel and the other messing with his ear and hair. Paul stared out the window, wondering what had possessed him to make him punch that mirror that way. It wasn’t like him. He’d never done that before. He felt like his mental state was spiraling out of control and he didn’t know why.  
  
     “Those girls will probably gossip about me for days,” he told John after they got to his flat, while his friend was bandaging his hand. “I could bet that they will tell all their friends about this crazy bloke who gave a smashing performance and then smashed the fucking mirror in the backstage,” he laughed.  
  
     “This isn’t funny, Paul,” John said, on a serious voice. “Why did you do that?”  
  
     “I don’t know... Why do you cut yourself?” John didn’t answer. He just fixated Paul with his gaze and they both stared at each other for a whole minute, before Paul looked down at the floor. “You’re not the only one who’s fucked up, mate.”  
  
     “I thought you’ve got your shit together.”  
  
     Paul laughed again, loudly and sarcastically this time, shaking his head slowly. “My shit hasn’t been together for a very long time.”  
  
    They were sitting on the bedroom floor, in front of each other. John had given him some comfortable clothes to change in and had insisted Paul let him clean and bandage his hand. He was acting really tender, but he looked angry. _‘That’s the full him,’_  Paul thought. _‘That’s both of his sides together.’_ He felt an incredible urge to kiss John, but he resisted it, biting on his lower lip instead and turning to look away.  
  
     “We should go to sleep." He got up from the floor once John was done aiding him and crawled in bed, laying down on his back. John followed him without saying anything. “For the record, I want you to know that I had fun tonight. And that what happened wasn’t in any way your fault.”  
  
     “Do you really have to go back to London?”  
  
     The question took him by surprise and kept him quiet for a moment. “Yeah... Why do you ask?”  
  
     John raised his shoulders and turned on his left side. “I just think you should stay.”  
  
     “I think I should stay too...” He turned around on his left side as well and wrapped his right arm around John’s body. “But I can’t. I’m sorry...” He pulled himself a bit closer to John once he realised his friend wasn’t going to push him away. “Is it okay if I hold you like this?” he asked, just to make sure. _  
_       
     “Yes," John said. "For the record, I had fun too. Thanks for going out there with me... It meant a lot.”  
  
     Paul squeezed John a bit tighter in his arms, pressed a kiss on his shoulder and then closed his eyes. “You’re welcome...”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am really sorry that I haven't been able to write in the past two weeks. I've had some family problems that I needed to solve. I am back now and I won't be leaving anymore for the foreseeable future (unless something unexpected happens), so I will be posting a lot more often. Once a week at least. That being said, I hope you all like this chapter ^^ Please tell me what you think, I love hearing from you guys! Love you all <3

     When Paul woke up, John wasn’t next to him anymore; it was the first thing he noticed. The bed felt cold as he tapped the mattress gently, with his eyes still closed, searching for his friend. A sharp pain traveled through his body from his right hand, making him wince and open his eyes. He stared confused at the bloodstained bandage around his knuckles for a moment. Then it all came back to him. The club, the concert, the happiness and excitement followed by the darkest depression he had ever felt. The unusual self-loathing that had made him punch that mirror and the terrifying emptiness that he’d experienced when he’d realised he could feel no pain. Paul had never gone through something like that before and he couldn’t explain what had taken over him. Whatever it had been though, it was gone. He wasn’t angry at himself anymore and could definitely feel pain again; in a way, he was happy about it. It was much better than feeling nothing.  
  
     The clock on the wall showed 2:35 PM. He saw that when he got out of bed. _‘At what time did we left the club?’_ he wondered, while taking off the clothes John had given him and dressing in his own. He couldn’t remember. Some details of the previous night were blurry, others were missing entirely. The ones he did remember were clear as day and vivid like the scenes of a movie, playing in the back of his mind. He wanted to make them go away.  
  
     A sweet smell hit him in the face as soon as he opened up the door. It reminded him of when he was a child and the scent of his mother’s cooking was the only thing that could convince him to get out of bed. He walked to the kitchen slowly and found John there, in front of the stove, pouring a thick, white mixture into a large frying pan. On the table behind him, a large deck of pancakes sat on a blue plate. Paul stood in the door frame and watched John for a whole minute, his lips slightly parted and his eyes blinking frequently. Out of all the things he had expected to see his friend doing that was probably the last on his list.  
  
     “Hey,” he eventually said, taking a few lazy steps forward.  
  
     John turned to look at him and smiled. “Oh, good morning, Macca! Sit down. I’m making pancakes.”  
  
     “Yes, I can see that.”  
  
     “I was going to wake you up when I finished, but it’s better that you woke up on your own.”  
  
     Paul sat down at the table and let out a hard breath that sounded like a mixture between a yawn and a sigh. His head felt really heavy and numb, but that didn’t surprise him anymore. He’d been hangover every day since he’d returned to Liverpool. “I didn’t know you can cook.”  
  
     “A girl I dated for a while taught me,” John explained, while flipping the pancake in the pan on the other side. “Her name was Karen. She cooked great and she gave amazing blowjobs. That’s all I remember about her.”  
  
     Paul chuckled and shook his head at his friend’s words. So rude and disrespectful, but that was something that he had always liked about John. “It’s better than not remembering anything at all, I guess.”  
  
     “Yes, it is. How’s your hand?”  
  
     “It hurts now. It didn’t last night.” His eyes scanned the kitchen, looking for what he thought was the most important part of any breakfast. “Where’s the coffee?”  
  
     “I don’t have any. I usually drink tea in the morning so that’s all I’ve got. You want some?”  
  
     “No...” Paul sighed. “I used to drink tea in the morning as well, but I switched it for coffee when I was 21 and I’ve been addicted ever since. Now I can barely keep my eyes open in the morning without a cup of that black shit.”  
  
     “I can go get you some if you want.”  
  
     “I would really appreciate that.”  
  
     John turned around and walked to the table holding the frying pan in his hand. He dropped the pancake he’d just finished on top of the others and smiled. “That’s eight. Should I make more?” he asked.  
  
     “I think this should be enough for the two of us,” Paul answered.  
  
     John nodded, looking down at the table. He wasn’t looking at the food anymore though. His eyes were fixated on Paul’s hands and his smile had mostly vanished. Paul moved uncomfortably in his chair, covering the bandaged knuckles of his right hand with his left. “You don’t have to hide it,” John said, turning around and walking away again, to put the pan in the sink. “It was my fault anyway. I shouldn’t have given you that pill.”  
  
     “You think it was because of that?”  
  
     “I don’t think, I know it was.” He opened one of the cupboards and pulling out two plates and some flatware. “That’s how they work, you see. A few hours of total bliss and then a few hours of pure misery.”  
  
     Paul squeezed his right hand with his left, closing his eyes at the pain he felt. It had not occurred to him that the reason for his mental breakdown had been a side effect of the drugs he’d taken. “You took one as well and you did not look too depressed.”  
  
     “I was though,” John informed him, placing one of the plates in front of him. “But I am always depressed so it goes unnoticed, I guess. Do you want some milk?”  
  
     Paul stared silently at his friend. He didn’t understand how John could so easily transition between such different and completely unrelated subjects, like mental health and breakfast. The change was abrupt. “No, thanks...” he replied.  
  
     John shrugged and grabbed a bottle of milk from the fridge, walking with it back to the table and finally sitting down across from Paul. “You should eat or they will all get cold.”  
  
     Paul nodded and grabbed one of the pancakes, placing it on his plate and starting to cut into it. “Do you have this for breakfast often?”  
  
     “Nah,” John said. “Actually, I don’t usually have breakfast. But you’re here, so it’s a special morning.”  
  
     “Technically, it’s a special afternoon.”  
  
     John laughed while cutting a big piece of his pancake. “Morning is when you wake up,” he said. “That’s how I think about it.”  
  
     It was normal for John to think that way, Paul thought, since John often worked all night long and was used to waking up at late hours. Paul, on the other hand, was usually in bed by 11 PM at the latest and would be up before 7. Everything about their lives seemed to be so different, it was almost hard to imagine that they’ve had the same beginning. Back when they were kids, he used to believe him and John were twin souls. If they were though, they would have kept having similar lives after they got separated as well, and they hadn’t. Not in any visible way, at least.  
  
     “You’re very silent,” John pointed out after a while.  
  
     Paul looked up at him with a blank expression. “Sorry, I was just thinking.”  
  
     “About what?”  
  
     “Me and you...”  
  
     John giggled with his mouth full. He drank a bit of his milk to wash the food down before speaking. “Sounds interesting. Care to share?”  
  
     “You know...” Paul shrugged. “Just how different our lives turned out to be. I used to think we’re so alike. I believe that’s why it was so easy for me to think that you’ve moved on, you know? Because I did...”  
  
     “Did you really though?” John asked. “You didn’t make any friends, right? You shut down emotionally, living a sad, empty life, building a career you did not want so you can surround yourself with material shit you did not need. You call that moving on?”  
  
     “I never thought of it that way...” Paul said. He was starting to lose his appetite.  
  
     “You didn’t move on, mate. You just convinced yourself you did. I, on the other hand, don’t really enjoy bullshitting myself. I may bullshit other people, but I stay true to myself.”  
  
     “Is that why you cut yourself?” John looked at him annoyed and Paul left his head down.  “I’m just asking...”  
  
     “I don’t do it all the time, you know? It’s not like this is my new favourite hobby. It only happed three or four times.”  
  
     “Well, when it did... Why was it? Why did you do it?”  
  
     John sighed and left his knife and fork down, leaning back in the chair. The conversation had taken a turn that he obviously did not expect or desire. He looked very bothered and it made Paul feel a bit guilty, but he wanted to know, so he didn’t try to drop it or change the subject.  
  
     “I just have these moments when I feel the need to do it,” John tried to explain. “It’s like a craving.”  
  
     “For pain..?” Paul asked and John nodded. He could definitely not relate to that. He had never desired to feel pain.  
  
     “Physical pain, that is,” John added, as if that made it sound better.  
  
     “Why though?”  
  
     “Because it’s better than the emotional one. If I focus on my hand bleeding and hurting, I don’t think about all the things that are tearing me apart inside. I escape them, at least for a while. Long enough to calm down and stop wanting to kill myself.” He took a deep breath in and pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “Does that answer your questions? Are you satisfied?”  
  
     “I wanted to know because I care for you, John... I want to help you.”  
  
     “How exactly are you gonna help me? When? You’ll leave again, won’t you? You made that very clear.” Paul didn’t reply and John let out a sad chuckle. “It’s okay, though, I’m used to that. Everyone I ever cared about has either left me or died. I guess that’s why I want to die too sometimes.”  
  
     “John, listen –“  
  
     “I’ll go get your coffee,” John interrupted Paul, getting up from his chair abruptly. “You said you want some, didn’t you?”  
  
     “Yes, but –“  
  
     “Is there any specific brand you prefer?”  
  
     “No, not really. But you don’t have to go, I don’t –“  
  
     “I won’t take long,” John assured him. “We can talk more when I’m back.”  
  
     Paul wanted to protest again, but figured it would be pointless, so he left out a hard breath and nodded in agreement before John stormed out of the kitchen and left the house. “Damn it...” he said to himself. He looked down at the breakfast John had prepared and couldn’t help but feel sad knowing that it would remain uneaten.

 

***

 

     Since he couldn’t eat anymore and he felt unable to sit still, Paul cleared up the kitchen table, washed the dishes and placed the remaining pancakes in a container for later. It would have been too sad to throw them away. He then walked into the living-room, which was still as much of a mess as it had been the first time he’d entered John’s flat. He decided to clean it, thinking it would keep him busy until his friend returned.  
  
     He took all of John’s clothes from the floor and folded them neatly, placing them one on top of the other into a pile before moving them into the bedroom. He grabbed all the books that were scattered all over the place and returned them to the bookshelf where they belonged, cleared all the ashtrays that were filled to the brim with cigarette buds, took all the glasses to the sink and threw away the three empty bottles of alcohol he found. He searched for a vacuum cleaner but couldn’t find one, which explained why the carpets in that house looked as if they had not been dusted for at least five years.  
  
     “Honestly... If my mum was alive to see this place, she’d have a heart attack,” he complained out loud, though nobody could her him.  
  
     He did everything he could to make John’s flat look more or less presentable and looked at the clock when he was done. Half an hour had passed. He reckoned John wouldn’t be gone for much longer. He really needed a cigarette. He had not smoked since he’d woken up that afternoon.  
  
     _‘I’m sure John has some somewhere around here...’_ he thought, looking through the living-room. He’d ran out of his the previous night at the club. Eventually, he found a couple of packs in a drawer, sitting on top of a photo album. He took it, along with one of the packs and closed the drawer with his elbow.  
  
     To his surprise, when he sat down and flipped the album open, Paul discovered that it was full of pictures of himself and John from back in the early days of their friendship. He’d never imagined that John would keep something like that, although he did seem to be quite attached to the past. Paul lit up a cigarette and crossed his legs, pulling the album closer so that he could see the pictures better.  
  
     _‘Oh God...’_ he thought. He’d not seen those pictures since back when they had been initially taken. Staring at his teenager self made him feel an uncomfortable combination of nostalgia and shame. He remembered those times so vividly and a part of him wished he could go back and relieve them, but at the same time, he was happy he had grown up and moved on.  
  
     _‘You didn’t move on, mate,’_ John’s words ran through his mind. _‘You just convinced yourself you did.’_ The truth of that statement had shaken Paul up. Lying to himself and to everyone around him had become his second nature and it was so troubling to find someone who saw through him as easily as John could; someone who would point things out as brutally as only John would.  
  
     The front door opened and John entered the house, holding a bag in his hands. He appeared much calmer than when he had left and Paul found him smiling when he looked up at him. “You cleaned my flat,” he said. Paul couldn’t tell if John was impressed or amused.  
  
     “As much as I could,” he replied.  
  
     “And you found the pictures.”  
  
     “I did.”  
  
     “I found your coffee. Come on, I’ll make some for both of us.”  
  
     John walked into the kitchen and Paul got up and followed him, with the album still in his hands and his half smoked cigarette between his lips. “I thought you don’t drink coffee.”   
  
     “I usually don’t, but you do, so...”  
  
     “It’s another one of those special things?”  
  
     John laughed. “I guess.”  
  
     Paul smirked and sat down in the same chair he’d sat in during breakfast, placing the album on the table and starting to flip through it again while John prepared the coffee. Some of the pictures of him from that album were new to him, he’d never seen them before, and he wasn’t sure if he’d forgotten them being taken or if John had taken them himself without his knowledge. Both options were just as likely.  
  
     “Did you find something funny?” John asked, hearing him giggle.  
  
     “Yeah. Me,” Paul answered. “I looked so...” He paused for a moment and shook his head, a mortified smile on his face. “I do not have the proper word for this.”  
  
     “Adorable?” John said. “I think you looked adorable.”  
  
     “Those cheeks though,” Paul laughed.  
  
     “That’s exactly what made you look so cute.” He didn’t contradict John, though he did not share his opinion. “I wasn’t any better myself.”  
  
     “Nah, you looked really cool,” Paul told him, looking at John’s younger self. “Back then I thought you’re the coolest guy in the world, you know?”  
  
     John turned to look at him over his shoulder. “You did?” He sounded genuinely surprised. “You never gave me that impression.”  
  
     “I was hiding most of my true feelings and thoughts.”  
  
     “Some things never change, huh.”  
  
     Paul looked up at John and then back at the album without saying anything. He just took a puff of his cigarette and flipped to the next page. His attention fell on the first picture, which portrayed a boy that both he and John used to be very close to. “Hey, it’s George!” he said, with a big smile.  
  
     John walked behind him to see the picture he was looking at. “He was such a child,” he commented, a smile appearing on his face as well. “But he was bloody brilliant with the guitar.”  
  
     “He really was,” Paul agreed. “And he had amazing hair.”  
  
     “That he did,” John laughed, walking back to the oven.  
  
     “He moved to Scotland,” Paul informed him. “He got married and all.”  
  
     “You kept in touch with him?” John asked, without turning to face Paul.  
  
     Paul nodded. “Somewhat. We sent letters back and forth since the year I left. He had my address but he never came to visit. He said he doesn’t like London. But he invited me to his new house in the last letter he sent me.”  
  
     “Did you go?”  
  
     “No. I didn’t have the time. I wanted to though. Scotland is a gorgeous place. I’d really like to see it. And I’d love to see him again, of course, and his wife.”  
  
     John remained silent, pouring the coffee into two cups. He appeared to be thinking and Paul decided not to disturb him. He wanted to avoid having another argument. It was too stressful whenever that happened.  
  
     “Let’s go together,” John suggested, placing the cups on the table and sitting down.  
  
     Paul pressed the burning end of his cigarette in the ashtray, putting it off. “What? Where?” he asked.  
  
     “To Scotland, to see George,” John said. He sounded excited. His face was lit up with that same glow he’d had when he’d first asked Paul to sing with him again. “I miss him, I haven’t seen him in almost ten years. He’d be so happy if he sees us both.”  
  
     “Have you kept in touch with him at all?”  
  
     John shook his head slowly. “No... After you left, I closed in a lot. I spent a lot of time with Cyn. Then I went back to Hamburg for a bit, on my own. Then I went to jail... The last time I’ve seen George was when we came looking for you together and we were told you’ve moved to London.”  
  
     “Mike told me about that. He said you almost beat him just for informing you that I’ve left.”  
  
     “More like for not having informed me sooner. If I would have known your father wanted to send you away, I would have come to your house. I wouldn’t have let you go.”  
  
     “I called you a lot during that month, you know? You never picked up. Your aunt did, a few times, and she told me that you’re not home or that you’re busy.”  
  
     “I was sad. I felt like a fucking loser...”  
  
     “Well... I felt alone. Like you abandoned me.”  
  
     “Don’t you even think about putting this shit on me.”  
  
     “I’m not! I was just saying...”  
  
     They both raised their heads at the same time and held each other’s gaze for a moment. Paul was the first to break it, by taking a sip of his coffee, when he noticed how agitated John looked. He seemed to be on the verge of getting angry again.  
  
     “Look,” he started, “we all fucked up really hard in our own ways, I guess. But that doesn’t mean we can’t try once more! We could go see George together and speak with him. He and I can play the guitar, you can get on the bass and we could find a drummer as well. Be a band again, you know? Make it work this time!”  
  
     Paul listened to John’s plan silently, just drinking his coffee, trying not to let his inner desire to scream be noticed. There was no way he could refuse John without upsetting him or firing up another argument, and that filled him with anxiety. _‘Goddamn it...’_ he thought.   
  
     “How much money do you really have?” John asked.  
  
     “Well, uhm... I couldn’t tell you an exact number but I’ve managed to gather a pretty decent amount in my bank account so far. Of course, I’ll be making a lot more in the future... Why do you ask?”  
  
     “You could drop the whole lawyer thing and we could use your money to buy some really good instruments and get a record deal and get it all rolling, you know?”  
  
     Paul blinked a few times. At that point, he wasn’t even sure if John was serious anymore or not. It all sounded like a joke. “Do you mean all this or are you just fucking with me?” he asked.  
  
     “Of course I bloody mean it, mate! Just think about it. It would work this time, we’d get famous!”  
  
     “No,” Paul said, shaking his head. He couldn’t keep silent anymore. “That’s not happening. You can’t ask this of me.”  
  
     “Why not? You offered me your money, didn’t you?”  
  
     “I offered to help you, John. Because I care about you very much and this small and messy flat has to go. I want to know you in a better place, I want to know you’re okay,” Paul explained, trying to keep his voice as levelled as he could. “But I never said that I’d just hand you all my money or that I would quit my job. That’s what you assumed.”  
  
     “Why not though? That bloody job doesn’t make you happy. It never will! Do you really want to go back to being bitter and alone? Like this you’d be with me, maybe George as well if he agrees to join us, and we’d have fun together!”  
  
     Paul closed his eyes and covered his face with his left hand, pressing his fingertips on his forehead and thinking; considering it. Asking himself if he could pick music back up again, as a profession this time, not just a hobby. If he could give up on his work as a lawyer - which was not fun, but it was satisfying and rewarding – and of all the money he’d worked so hard for, in order to chase after a dream that he’d long forgotten about.  
  
     “I can’t do it,” he said, once he reached a conclusion. “I’m sorry, I just... I can’t.”  
  
     “It’s because of your dad, isn’t it?” John asked.  
  
     Paul had not anticipated that question. “No...” he answered.  
  
     “Come on, mate. When you came here yesterday you were out of your mind because of him. You said he tried to order you around, right?”  
  
     “That has nothing to do with this.”  
  
     “Yes, it does,” John insisted.  
  
     “No, it doesn’t. My dad and I, we –“  
  
     “I know he used to beat you, Paul!” John said, interrupting him. Paul stared at him completely still, his mouth half opened, before closing it and squeezing his left hand into a fist. “Me just mentioning it irritates you, huh?”  
  
     “Mike told you about it?”  
  
     “No one had to tell me. I am not a fucking idiot, mate. I always knew. You were so bloody scared of him, of doing anything that your ‘daddy’ would disapprove of. At first, I thought you were one of those kids who just want to make their father proud, but then I started seeing the bruises on you, even though you were trying to hide them.”  
  
     “When was this?” Paul asked.  
  
     “Hell... When you were like sixteen?” Paul nodded slowly. He had never told anyone and he had always been sure that nobody except his brother knew. “I told you to stop letting him rule over your life, remember? I told you many times. I told you to fight back. I thought it would make you open up and talk to me about it, but it didn’t... So I didn’t push it.”  
  
     “I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. And I still don’t. It’s in the past, it doesn’t matter.”  
  
     “It fucking matters, mate. It matters a lot, because it’s still affecting you now.”  
  
     Paul laughed nervously. “No, it doesn’t.” He was getting defensive. It bothered him that John knew so much. It made him feel vulnerable and exposed, as if John was ripping his armour apart bit by bit, leaving him naked. “I think I should go.”  
  
     “Go where?”  
  
     “Back to the hotel,” Paul said, getting up from his chair. “Thank you for the coffee.”  
  
     He turned to leave but John grabbed onto his arm and held it strongly. “Hold on. You’re not leaving.”  
  
     “Why not?”  
  
     “Why do you want to leave? Is it because of what I said?” Paul didn’t answer and John paced around on spot for a moment. “You need to stop running from yourself, Macca. It’s not good for you.”  
  
     “Says the man who cuts himself.”  
  
     John squeezed his arm a bit tighter in his hand, almost painfully hard. “I’m not the only one who’s fucked up, right? You said so last night.”  
      
     “Let go of me, please. It hurts.”  
  
     John released his arm and Paul took a step back, wrapping his hand around the spot where John had squeezed him. “Why do you keep running from me, Paul? Is it because your dad doesn’t like me? Or is it because you’re afraid of how much _you_ like me? Of the fact that you always liked me more than you’re supposed to like a friend.”  
  
     Paul bit his lower lip, staring at the floor. “Now you’re just being full of yourself.”  
  
     “Am I?”  
  
     “I’m going back to the hotel.”  
  
     He turned around and started walking without looking back. He heard John say a loud ‘No, you’re not!’ and he walked a bit faster, but he stopped in the hall when John grabbed him by the shirt, spun him around and pushed him against the wall, placing both his hands on the cold surface to make sure Paul couldn’t get past him. It made Paul feel trapped and scared, though he did not fear John. Or he didn’t use to fear him, at least.  
  
     “Are you going to break my face?” he asked.  
  
     “Why would I do that?”  
  
     “I don’t know...” Paul shrugged. “David told me you tend to do that a lot now.”  
  
     “David told you nothing good, I swear...”  
  
     He grabbed onto John’s shirt and squeezed it lightly in his fist. “John... Please, let me go. I’m not feeling well, I’m... I just need to be alone, you know? I have so many thoughts in my head, my brain is gonna explode. I need some time...”  
  
     “You had time, mate. You had nine bloody years. You’ve done all the thinking you needed. So have I. Now it’s time for being honest. It’s time we talk and solve this somehow.”  
  
     “Starting a band right now would be –“  
  
     “I’m not talking about the band now.”   
  
     “Then what are you talking about?”  
  
     “Us,” John said. “I’m talking about our relationship. The one we started back then. Or tried to, at least...” He cupped Paul’s cheek with his left hand and Paul felt his heart starting to beat faster. “I wanted you so much, you know? And all these years without you made me so angry, thinking you didn’t want me anymore. That maybe you never did in the first place. But now I know you do. I could tell last night, when I kissed you, and when you hugged me when we went to sleep. You still love me, don’t you?”  
  
     “Yes...” Paul admitted. “Yes, goddamn it, yes! I bloody love you... I never stopped loving you. I –“  
  
     Before he could finish his sentence, John moved his right hand from the wall to his waist, pulling him closer and kissing his lips. The movement was so fast and swift, it caught Paul completely by surprise and made him stiffen up, but he turned soft just seconds later and kissed John back. He closed his eyes and opened his mouth, allowing John’s tongue to slip inside. His right hand was still squeezing onto John’s shirt and he reached up with his left, bringing it to John’s head and letting his fingers sink into the man’s soft, blonde hair. He’d dreamed so often of kissing John again like that, he wasn’t even sure if that moment was real or not, but he didn’t care. It felt so good, so perfect... He just wished he could make it last forever.


	7. Chapter 7

     There was a passion and hunger in that kiss that Paul had never felt before. They only pulled back when they were out of breath and they looked at each other. John was breathing hard and he ran his hand up and down Paul’s waist. He tried to pull him back in, but Paul turned his head around.  
  
     “Wait...” he said, softly.  
  
     “What’s wrong?”  
  
     “Well... Uhm... I...” Paul babbled.  
  
     “Speak up, McCartney!”  
  
     He looked up at John and pouted, letting go of John’s shirt and caressing his chest gently to soften up the material he had wrinkled. “What about all those girls you’ve been with?”  
  
     John raised his eyebrow and smirked. “Jealous, are we?”  
  
     “More like concerned,” Paul corrected him. “Are you sure that I am what you want?”  
  
     “Pretty damn sure,” John nodded. “They never mattered, Paul. I can barely even remember anything about them. With you, it’s the opposite. I couldn’t forget you. I tried to, but it was impossible. I remember every second of every moment we have spent together and every detail about you... Yeah, I may have given my body to a lot of people, but I never gave them my heart because it’s always been with you. And it still is...”  
  
     Paul felt truly moved by John’s words and he believed them to be true, but he laughed instead of acknowledging it. “That was so sappy, mate.”  
  
     “Shut up. I write love songs for a living.”  
  
     Paul laughed and shook his head. It was so typical of John to go from saying something deep to making jokes. “Most of the love songs you’ve written lately are really sad though,” he reminded him, trying to keep the conversation from turning into a mockery.  
  
     John touched his cheek, fingers brushing down his lips and chin tenderly, as if he wanted to memorise his face or just make sure that the moment they were living was real. “It’s because they were for you,” he confessed, “and you were not with me...”  
  
     “I’m here now...” Paul said, wrapping his left arm around John’s waist. “When I came back to Liverpool on Monday, it was just my body that had returned, you know? But inside, I was still running away, hiding, trying to keep all my thoughts and feelings locked...”  
  
     “Are you done running away now?” John asked, on a serious tone, without any hint of sarcasm in his voice.  
  
     “Yeah... I think I’m finally fully here.”  
  
     “So you don’t want to go back to the hotel anymore?”  
  
     Paul giggled and squeezed John’s waist a bit tighter with his arm. “I don’t... I kind of want to finish that coffee.”  
  
     “It’s probably gotten a bit cold.”  
  
     “That’s alright, I don’t mind.”  
  
     They walked back into the kitchen holding hands and sat back down at the table. This time though, John sat next to Paul instead of across from him. They turned their chairs around as well, so they would be facing each other. They both felt the need to be closer.  
  
     “I think you’re right, you know...” Paul said. “We both fucked up a lot in our own ways, but that doesn’t mean we can’t change it.”  
  
     “If you could turn back time and change something, what would it be?” John asked.  
  
     Paul whistled and let out a small chuckle, grabbing his cup of coffee from the table and holding it in his hand. “Wow, that’s a hard question... Uhm... Does it have to be just one thing?” he asked back, before taking a sip. The coffee had indeed turned very cold.  
  
     “Yes, just one thing,” John said.  
  
     “Then I would have stayed and fought for you,” Paul told him. “Granted, that would be if I could turn back time while keeping the same mindset I currently have and remembering everything that has happened for the past nine years.”  
  
     “If you didn’t you’d just do the same thing all over again?”  
  
     “Probably. I know it’s not what you want to hear. Hell, it’s not even what I want to hear. But knowing me and remembering that time... Yeah, I’d probably just do the same.”  
  
     “You were that scared, huh?”  
  
     Paul just nodded silently. He didn’t want them to go back to discussing his family problems, especially his father, but it seemed unavoidable.  
  
     “Goddamn it, Paul... You should have talked to me about it, mate. You should have told me how scared you were and what was going on with you.”  
  
     Paul closed his eyes and took a deep breath in, trying to emotionally prepare himself for what he had to say. “At the time, I thought you wouldn’t understand because it wasn’t happening to you,” he admitted, opening his eyes to face John. “The only one I talked about it with was Mike. To me, you were so cool, John... Nothing seemed to get to you. You were so strong, so stubborn, so ambitious. So ready to go against everything and everyone to get what you wanted. I admired you so much. You were my bloody hero, you know?” He smiled, reminiscing. “You were fearless...”  
  
     John laughed. “I was terrified of everything, mate.”  
  
     “Oh, I know you were. But that didn’t stop you. Nothing ever did. That’s bravery and it’s something I never had. I wanted you to believe I did though. I wanted you to admire me as I admired you, to be proud of having me as your friend, as a member or your band. So I tried everything I could to make you think that we’re the same, that I was just as rebellious and strong and brave as you. Of course I wasn’t going to tell you that my dad was beating the shit out of me... How uncool would that have been?”  
  
     He ended his small rant with a sigh and drank a bit more of the coffee. John remained silent and Paul wasn’t sure if it was because John understood what he’d said or because he just felt sorry for him. He was betting on the latter though; he kept his gaze lowered, his eyes scanning the floor, looking for nothing in particular.  
  
     “I don’t know how you can drink that thing,” John said. The sudden change of subject made Paul finally look at him again. “It’s really bitter and disgusting.”  
  
     _‘That’s really random...’_ Paul thought, but he appreciated it. He’d have rather talked about anything else except the conversation they were having. “I think it’s good,” he said.  
  
     “Say it to me again.”  
  
     Paul narrowed his eyebrows in confusion. “I think it’s good..?” he repeated.  
  
     “Not that,” John rolled his eyes. “What you said earlier in the hall. That you love me.”  
  
     Paul smiled and placed his cup of coffee back on the table. “I love you...”  
  
     “Only me?” John inquired. “Nobody else but me?”  
  
     “Only you,” Paul assured him. “I never loved anyone else, before or after you. Ever.”  
  
     John reached forward, grabbing onto the legs of Paul’s chair with both hands and pulling it closer, until their knees bumped against each other. “I love you, too.” He placed his right hand on Paul’s face, caressing his cheek gently with his thumb and pressed a fast kiss on his lips. “Paul...” he started then paused, as if he couldn’t bring himself to finish what he wanted to say.  
  
     “Yes? What is it?”  
  
     “Please, stay with me,” he begged. “Don’t ever go again. Don’t leave me.”  
  
     “John...”  
  
     “We can work it out, you’ll see.”  
  
     “The band, you mean?”  
  
     “The band, us, everything. We can solve everything as long as we’re together. If you leave again, I won’t be able to take it. I know I won’t. It would bloody kill me inside.”  
  
     He was speaking fast, tapping his foot nervously on the floor at the same time. Seeing him so troubled and tense, so vulnerable, made Paul’s heart sink into his stomach. The last thing he’d ever wanted was to make John suffer and he’d obviously managed to do that so much that John was terrified he’d do it again.  
  
     “It’s true, I used to be strong and fearless and all else back then,” John continued, after a small moment of silence. “But so much has happened since and I am so tired, Paul...” He took Paul’s hand in his and squeezed it softly. “It’s your turn to be brave, for both of us. Just leave it all behind and stay with me...”  
  
     “John, baby...” Paul said, squeezing his hand back. “I want to. Believe me, I do. Is just that... I have so many clients back in London, you know? So many responsibilities. Those people need me.”  
  
     “I need you,” John said, pressing on the ‘I’. “They will never need you half as much as I do. You’re expendable to them, they can find another lawyer. I could never replace you.” Paul let his head down but John grabbed onto his chin with his free hand, pushing his head up and making him look up. “You said you love me... Only me.”  
  
     “And I do, John. I swear to God.”  
  
     “Then why is this so hard for you? It should be easy. What are you so scared of?”  
  
     “What if we fail?” Paul asked, deciding to be honest about his true fears. There was no way he could keep bullshitting John anymore. “Let’s say I drop everything and go along with your plan and we put a band together again and we go for it and fail. We lose all the money and nothing comes out of it. What would we do then? What would we have left?”  
  
     “Each other...” John said. His answer was so fast and easy, it didn’t take him even a second to think. “We’d have each other. And as far as I’m concerned, I’d rather live in the fucking streets with you, than in a mansion by myself. You’re all I’ve ever wanted, Paul. You’re all I need to be happy...”  
  
     Paul had never heard something more beautiful in his life, and clearly not directed at him. There was so much honesty in John’s voice, it made his eyes fill up with tears. He felt so lucky to have someone who loved him that much. It made all the fear and doubt that he’d been feeling for years disappear, like smoke clearing in the air. It made him feel brave. John was right, all they needed was each other. There had been a time when he'd fully believed that as well, but others had made him change his mind, made him believe that financial security and a 'good life' were far more important than happiness or love. But that's no way to live. _‘Fuck what everyone says and thinks,’_ he told himself. _‘I want him... I want to be with him.’_  
  
     He got up from the chair and sat in John’s lap, facing him; John’s arms wrapped around his waist almost automatically. “You’re all I ever wanted as well...” he said. “Let's do it. I’ll follow your lead. I’ll do anything you say.”  
  
     “You mean it?” John asked and Paul nodded fast. “Please, don’t mess with me, Macca...”  
  
     “I’m not,” he whispered. “I’ve never been more honest in my life, not even to myself.” He ran his left hand up and down John’s neck slowly, keeping the right one on his shoulder. “I have George’s address in my agenda. Which I brought with me, it’s at the hotel. We could go get it tonight and leave for Scotland tomorrow morning.” John snorted and bit his lower lip, trying to contain his laughter. “What’s wrong?”  
  
     “You actually have an agenda? Like old business men?” John asked, a cheeky grin on his face. “That sounds so bloody professional, mate.”  
  
     Paul slapped his arm hard and John burst into laughter, pressing his forehead against Paul’s chest and holding a bit tighter onto his waist. “Honestly...” Paul said, trying to sound upset. He felt amused too though, mostly by the sound of John’s laughter. “I’m not an old man. But I am a professional, you know? Or used to be, since I will leave that behind.”  
  
     John stopped laughing and raised his head. “You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?”  
  
     “Absolutely,” Paul said. He looked past John at the clock that was hanging on the wall. “It’s almost five,” he pointed out. “We could wait a few more hours and then go to the hotel together.”  
  
     “What will we do in those few hours?”  
  
     Paul smiled and leaned backwards a bit, pulling slowly onto John’s shirt. “Well... I have a few things in mind...” he said, playfully. “If you want to, of course.”  
  
     “Hmm... Let me consider it for a moment,” John replied, on a fake thoughtful tone. “I don’t know what to say about this.” Paul slapped his arm again and they both laughed. “Stop hitting me, damn it!” he complained, through the laughter. “Bloody Hell, since when did you become so aggressive?”  
  
     “I’m sorry,” Paul giggled, pressing his forehead against John’s. “I love you...”  
  
     “I love you too,” John said, brushing his fingers up Paul’s back. “I think we should move to the bedroom.”  
  
     “Brilliant idea,” Paul smirked.  
  
     He got up in his feet and took John’s hand in his, making him get up as well. In their teenage years, when they had first tried dating, they had never made it past kissing and touching. Both of them had been too scared to take it that extra step, feeling that sex would make their relationship too serious and too gay. As long as they didn’t have sex, they could fool themselves into thinking that they were just friends who kissed. Paul had come to regret it more and more with time though, as he came to realise how foolish that mentality was to begin with. He was very pleased that John appeared to have grown out of that mentality as well. Actually, Just seemed to want nothing more than to make Paul his in that moment.  
  
     As soon as they reached the bedroom, he found himself being thrown in the bed and before he could even say anything about it, John was on top of him, unbuttoning his shirt. “Well, someone’s eager,” he said.  
  
     “I’ve wanted you for a long time,” John said, licking his lips as he pushed Paul’s shirt off and admired his body. “You’re so fucking beautiful, mate...”  
  
     Paul smiled, blushing a bit. He had always loved being complimented by John. When anybody else praised him for his looks – and a lot of people did – it mostly made him feel uncomfortable, even degraded, in certain cases. John was the only one who could actually make him feel beautiful by calling him that.  
  
     “I want to see you too...” He requested and John pulled back, starting to undo his own shirt almost instantly. “No,” Paul stopped him, moving his hands away. “Let me.”  
  
     He pulled himself in a sitting position and slowly unbuttoned John’s shirt, pressing a tender kiss on every new inch of skin as he uncovered it. He’d had so many dreams about being that intimate with John, he almost couldn’t believe it that it was actually happening. He was so turned on and they had not even started yet. Just the two of them being there that way was enough to arouse him.  
  
     They explored each other’s bodies with both tenderness and passion as they undressed each other, touching, kissing, squeezing and licking, each trying to discover what made the other one tick. It was very different compared to all of the other sexual encounters Paul had participated in. He’d never bothered, preferring to always skip past the prelude and get what he wanted, mainly because he had never cared about any of the girls he’d slept with. It occurred to him in that moment that while he’d had sex many times, he’d never made love before. And he wanted to. He wanted to make love with John. It was a sudden realisation, which made him wonder if John wanted the same thing. It was hard to tell, especially since John seemed to be involved in many trivial, meaningless relationships, and the last thing Paul desired was to end up as just another name on his best friend’s long list of people he’d fucked.  
  
     “John, wait...” he said, all of a sudden, while John was sucking on his neck. He pushed him gently away and looked at him, but kept caressing his chest slowly, to make sure John didn’t think he was rejecting him.  
  
     “What is it?” John asked, looking puzzled and slightly worried. “Did I do something wrong?”  
  
     “No, no...” Paul smiled. “Is just that... If I do this, if I give myself to you in this way, you have to promise me something.”  
  
     “Promise you what?”  
  
     “That there won’t be anybody else from now on. No more random birds, definitely no other blokes. Just me...”  
  
     John smirked. “Is that it?” He looked relieved. “I swear,” he said, “but you’re mental if you think I’d ever even want anyone else now that I have you.”  
  
     Paul grabbed onto John’s hair and kissed him as a reward. That was everything he had wanted to hear. He leaned back until his head hit one of the pillows, pulling John with him in an inviting way. “I love you, babe...” he moaned, after their lips parted.  
  
     John didn’t reply but Paul knew he loved him too.


	8. Chapter 8

     “If you keep doing that, you’ll leave marks all over me,” Paul complained, as John bit and sucked onto his shoulder.  
  
     “That’s the point,” John whispered. “I want to leave marks all over you. You’re mine now.”  
  
     Paul smiled and allowed him to continue. He wasn’t really bothered by anything that John was doing, he was just a bit worried about the visible signs he may be left with once they were done. It was so typical of him to over think things. Even in such a beautiful moment like the one they were living, he still couldn’t pause his thoughts. John’s lips were moving down on his body, kissing his chest and stomach, and there he was, wondering if what they were doing was a sin and what would happen if anyone found out; blaming himself for his feelings for John, feelings that men shouldn’t have for each other – or so he’d been told, at least. He was just happy that John couldn’t hear the thoughts that were going through his mind. It would have surely turned him off if he did.  
  
     When John’s mouth reached his cock, tongue travelling down his shaft, Paul gasped and closed his eyes tightly, his mind clearing of all the thoughts that were troubling him. “What are you doing?” he asked, a mixture of surprise and arousal in his voice.  
  
     “What does it look like?” John replied, repeating the action. “You really need to calm down, baby. If you don’t, this is going to be no fun for you. You’re so tense, I can tell... Just relax. I won’t hurt you.”  
  
     “I know...” Paul said, his voice breaking into a soft moan.  
  
     John started sucking him and Paul grabbed onto the bed sheets with his left hand, pressing his head hard onto the pillow. The warmth of John’s mouth was electrifying and the way his tongue pressed onto his cock while his head moved up and down sent tingles all over his body. As Paul grew more and more turned on, he stopped caring whether what they were doing was right or wrong. He left himself be taken away by the amazing pleasure he was feeling. After all, how could it be bad when it felt so good?   
  
     Once he started feeling close to having an orgasm, Paul placed one of his hands on John’s forehead, trying to gently push him away. “G-Get off...” he told him, his voice shaky. “I’m gonna cum...”  
  
     Instead of stopping though, John pushed his hand away tenderly and began moving faster, grabbing onto the base of his cock and squeezing it. It was obvious what he was trying to do and it caught Paul by surprise. He had never imaged John to be the kind of man who would try to make someone cum in his mouth. In a way, Paul didn’t want to do it, thinking that it would be degrading to John somehow. He tried to hold back, to restrain his orgasm. John noticed that very fast and he moved his hand from the base of Paul’s cock to his balls, cupping them and massaging them softly, while still sucking him with more passion than any woman had ever done it.  
  
_‘Goddamn it...’_ Paul thought, while panting and arching his back a bit. John wasn’t going to allow him to hold back. He tried for a couple more minutes though, until it all became too much for him and he had no choice but to let go. He released a rather large amount of cum into John’s mouth, his hips thrusting up involuntary and pushing himself deeper in, so much that he felt the back of John’s throat around the head of his cock. It impressed him that John didn’t gag or choke at all. He just sat there, perfectly still and silent, almost submissive. Paul could hear him swallowing his cum while he was breathing hard, trying to recover from his orgasm.  
  
     “I can’t believe you did that...”  
  
     John looked at him with a little smirk, before gazing down at his still trembling body and brushing his fingers on his stomach and up his chest. “Did what?” he playfully asked.  
  
     “You swallowed it...”  
  
     “Why wouldn’t I? I love all of you. That includes your cum.” He pressed a kiss on Paul’s lips and Paul wrapped his arms around him, sinking his fingers in his hair. “It was delicious, by the way.”  
  
     Paul giggled and pulled him closer for one more kiss. “Let me do it to you too now,” he offered, feeling like he should return the gesture.  
  
     “Maybe next time,” John said. “For now, there’s something else I’d rather do with my cock. Something I’ve wanted to do since we were kids.” Paul bit his lower lip nervously, knowing exactly what John was talking about. “Are you scared?”  
  
     “A bit...” Paul confessed. “I know it’s supposed to hurt.”  
  
     “Only if you do it wrong,” John told him. “If you do it the right way, it shouldn’t hurt at all, it should only feel good. You trust me?”  
  
     “You know I do...”  
  
     “Then don’t worry. I’ll be really careful.”  
  
     Paul nodded softly in agreement, absentmindedly playing with John’s hair. John’s hand travelled down on his body, from his chest all the way to his stomach and then between his legs, and Paul’s heart started beating faster with excitement and anticipation. A shiver passed through his body as two of John’s fingers entered him. His eyes shut closed and his mouth opened in a moan, but John kissed him, blocking up most of the sounds he was making. He tried to focus on the kiss while John’s fingers started moving around inside him, thrusting in and out, trying to force his hole to stretch. It didn’t hurt that much, it just felt very uncomfortable and a bit embarrassing.  
  
     “Don’t tense up...” John whispered in his ear after the kiss broke.  
  
     “I’m sorry...” Paul apologised.  
  
     He took a deep breath in and tried his best to relax, reminding his body that everything was going to be alright. It all felt a bit awkward, even if he was happy to be there, with John. Whenever he’d dreamed or imagined their first time together, it had always been so magical and amazing, like a perfect combination between a porn movie and a romance novel. Those kind of expectations are rarely met in reality though, so Paul wasn’t too surprise or disappointed about the fact that he didn’t feel as if he was living some erotic fairytale. If anything, he was happy about it. If everything would have been too perfect, he would have questioned if it was even real or if he was just dreaming again.  
  
     “I think you’re ready,” John said, after a few minutes, and Paul agreed.  
  
     He felt ready. John had managed to get three fingers moving in and out of him smoothly, and he had more or less calmed down and started to enjoy himself. His body felt warm and tingly and his cock, which had turned soft after John had sucked him, was hard again and almost dripping. A small whimper escaped his lips as John pulled his fingers out and got in his knees in between his legs. Paul stood still, just watching him. John’s cock was a lot harder than his own and he could tell that his lover wasn’t able nor willing to wait even a second longer.  
  
     “Just fuck me. Come on...” Paul encouraged him, spreading his legs a bit wider. “I want it. I want you...”  
  
     He closed his eyes when he felt John’s cock pressing against his ass, trying to somehow mentally prepare himself. He thought John was going to take it easy and try to enter him slowly and carefully, but that didn’t happen. As soon as he was in the right position, John just shoved it all in, hard and fast, in one single thrust. Paul’s eyes opened wide and he almost screamed, arching his back and shaking.  
  
     “Fuck!” he gasped, breathing hard.  
  
     His back fell slowly back down on the bed and John giggled, caressing his head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he apologised fast, though he still sounded quite amused. “I thought it would be better if I do it this way. Are you alright?”  
  
     “Mhm,” Paul nodded. He found it hard to speak. He couldn’t tell if he was in pain or if the pleasure had just escalated too much too fast. All he knew was that he felt overwhelmed.  
  
     “It’s okay,” John told him, reassuringly, bending down to kiss his forehead. “It’s all in now. It’s not gonna hurt anymore, it will just feel good.”  
  
     Before Paul could say anything, John kissed him and started moving his hips back and forth. His thrusts were slow but deep and Paul moaned through the kiss and wrapped his hands around John’s head, to make sure he wouldn’t pull back. _‘Damn, this feels amazing...’_ he thought. It wasn’t just the physical pleasure – which was, without a doubt, amazing. There was so much more than that. He felt happy. Happy than him and John could finally be together that way, the way they had always wanted to be. He felt proud of himself for having found the courage to stop listening to that pestering, inner voice that kept telling him that it would be better to suffer alone than to be happy with someone else if that someone was a man. He felt thankful to John for having waited for him for so long and for giving him another chance. And, above all, he felt in love; so deeply in love with John.  
  
     “Do you like it?” John asked.  
  
     Paul wrapped his legs around his waist and pulled him closer. “I love it...” he moaned. “Don’t stop.”  
  
     John smirked and started moving a bit faster. “I won’t.”  
  
     “I love you, John...”  
  
     “I love you, too.”  
  
     They didn’t talk much after that anymore, but they told each other, with their bodies, everything they’d never dared to say before. All that love, desire, longing and passion, the craving they had for one another, even some of the fear, sadness and loneliness, came alive while they were making love. They both felt it and they both realised how the other felt as well. It was in that moment that they rewrote their future and decided that they will never part again, no matter what would happen. That moment was as powerful as a wedding vow.  
  
     Night had fallen by the time they stopped. The room was dark when John finally laid down on the bed on his back and pulled Paul to his chest. He turned on the lamp that was sitting on his night stand and Paul smiled and kissed his neck. They were both tired but overjoyed.  
  
     “I don’t think I have ever cum that much in my life...” Paul confessed.  
  
     “You came like five times,” John said. “I didn’t know you had that much cum in you.”  
  
     “Well, that’s because I haven’t had sex in a very long time, you know?”  
  
     “And here I was, thinking that it was because I’m really good.”  
  
     Paul laughed and caressed John’s chest softly, rubbing his cheek gently on his shoulder. “It was mostly because of that. You were really, really good. You were amazing...”  
  
     “We’ll have to do that again soon.”  
  
     “We will do that every day from now on. Several times a day, if possible.”  
  
     John let out a small chuckle and then looked down at Paul with a smile. “You were serious earlier, weren’t you? You really plan to stay with me?”  
  
     “Yes. I will never leave again,” Paul assured him. “I will have to take a trip to London though, to settle everything there and take all of my things and what not. But you will come with me when that happens.”  
  
     “And you’ll move here in Liverpool?”  
  
     “Yes. Don’t you want us to live here?”  
  
     “Technically,” John said. “I want us to get to George first and talk to him, see what he says. We might have to stay in Scotland for a while.”  
  
     “Alright,” Paul accepted, wrapping his arm around John’s chest lovingly.  
  
     John watched him silently for a second, looking both doubtful and amazed at the same time. “You’re seriously gonna just... put your life into my hands?”  
  
     “Yup,” Paul told him. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”  
  
     “It is, of course it is... But it’s not what you wanted. Not until a few hours ago, at least. What made you change your mind so suddenly?”  
  
     “It was what you said...” He explained. “You told me that you’d rather live on the streets with me than in a mansion by yourself. I used to think that way too, you know? Back when we were kids... I hoped and dreamed we’d get famous and rich, but it wasn’t my priority. I just wanted to be with you and George and to play my music and be happy. That was what mattered most...”  
  
     “But that changed,” John said and Paul nodded. “After Hamburg, right?”  
  
     “Yeah...”  
  
     “What happened, Paul? What happened after you went back home that time?”  
  
     Paul took a deep breath in and squeezed John a bit tighter in his arms. He didn’t want to talk about it, but he thought John deserved to know. “From before we left, my dad told me that it wasn’t going to work out. That we were going to fail and that I was just wasting my time with the band and so on and so forth... You know how he was. So after we got deported and I had to return home all defeated, he made me feel like absolute shit. It was a never-ending storm of ‘I told you so’ and ‘you should have listened’ and ‘you fucking stupid child’.”  
  
     “Did he beat you?”  
  
     “Not right away. See, I was already very depressed and I think he thought it wouldn’t have done no good. He spent the first couple of weeks just crushing apart my confidence and all my dreams and illusions. After that, he started telling me that I need to either go to school or go to work and that he wasn’t going to just have me laying around like an idiot. That’s when I became desperate to reach you. I called you so many times, but you didn’t pick up... I wanted you to do, but it was like you had vanished and I was all alone.”  
  
     “I’m sorry...” John said.  
  
     “It’s okay...” Paul sighed. “After that, me and him started fighting a lot, you know? I didn’t want to do what he wanted me to do. I was thinking that you’d eventually get your shit together and call me. I wanted to wait for you to do that. I didn’t want to let go of you or the band. And that really pissed my dad off. Things got worse really fast and it turned physical.” He stopped for a moment, staring lost into nothing, remember everything that he’d been trying so hard to forget. John squeezed his shoulder with his hand in a reassuring manner, pulling him back into the present right when he was ready to get lost in the memories. “Anyway... He made some phone calls and sent some letters and he managed to get me into a very prestigious Law University. I still don’t know how he did it, but he did... And he told me that if I don’t go, I wasn’t his son anymore. He was going to kick me into the street and forget that I existed. Or so he said... I’m not sure if he would have really done it, but I believed him that he’d do it, at the time.”  
  
     “So you went to the University,” John concluded.  
  
     “Yes, I did. I’m really sorry, John...”  
  
     “No. Don’t apologise. It was my fault as much as it was yours... Hell, I’m probably guiltier than you are. I shouldn’t have left you alone. I abandoned you first...”  
  
     “It doesn’t matter who’s guilty or who fucked up more,” Paul said, pulling himself into a sitting position. “None of us did the right thing. You should have been there for me and I should have been stronger. I should have told someone what my dad was doing to me, I should have come to your house and demanded you speak to me, I should have not fucking left... But I was a coward and that’s on me.”  
  
     “Why didn’t you come back though? Did you really think I’d moved on?”  
  
     “Yes. Although, it’s more like I wanted to believe that, you know? I lied to myself a lot because it made things easier. My dad forced me to think that you can’t live off of love and dreams and that having a career and a good reputation and money was what matters most in life. And then all those teachers at that University reinforced that belief. I knew it was bullshit, but I was tired of fighting. I felt like I couldn’t do anything, that I couldn’t win against them. So I just left my true self behind and became one of them...”  
  
     “That is the most depressing thing I’ve ever heard in my life...”  
  
     Paul giggled sadly. “It is... But... When I came back, when I saw you again that Monday night, on that stage, so unchanged, as if time hasn’t even touched you at all, I remembered so many things. It was like this mask that I’ve created started cracking... And today, it finally shattered. I am finally me again. And honestly, I don’t give a shit what my dad or anyone else says or does or thinks. I just want to be true to my real self. And the only thing my real self has wanted, during all these years, was to find you and be with you again.”  
  
     “Wow... And you said I was the sappy one,” John said.  
  
     Paul laughed and shook his head, fighting the urge to hit John for making fun of his feelings. “You’re horrible, you know that?”  
  
     “Yeah,” John agreed, moving a bit closer to him. “But you love me anyway.”  
  
     Paul touched his cheek lovingly and placed a small kiss on his lips. “More than anything. And I will never leave your side again. Not even the Russian Army could take me away from you now.”  
  
     “What about the Germans though?” John asked jokingly.  
  
     “They couldn’t stop me either.”  
  
     John kissed him and grabbed onto his waist with both hands, pushing him backwards and making him lay down on his back. “How about the Japanese?”  
  
     “What?” Paul laughed. “They don’t even have an army anymore, do they?”  
  
     “Oh! The bloody Americans, mate! The Americans could definitely stop you. Those crazy bastards can stop anyone from doing anything.”  
  
     “No,” Paul said, still laughing.  
  
     “No?” John asked and Paul shook his head. “Seems like you’re ready for any battle, huh?”  
  
     “More ready than ever.”  
  
     John smirked and pressed a tender kiss on Paul’s forehead. “I love you, Paul. I love you so much...”  
  
     “I love you more,” Paul said. “There’s one thing I want you to promise me though.”  
  
     “I solemnly swear I won’t cheat on you or leave you or anything of that sort.”  
  
     “That’s great,” Paul smiled, “but that’s not what I wanted.” He wrapped his arms around John’s back and held him tenderly, looking at him with a serious expression. “I want you to promise me you’ll never hurt yourself again.” John left his head down, looking obviously disturbed by his request. “Please?” Paul insisted.  
  
     “I told you before, that’s not because of you. It’s my problem and it’s completely unrelated.”  
  
     “I want to help you with it. If we are going to be a real couple, than your problems are mine as well and my problems are yours as well. I will do anything I can to help you, but you have to promise me that you’ll try...”  
  
     John finally looked up at him again. Paul couldn’t really read his expression, but it seemed to him that John understood what he was trying to say. “I will try...” he promised.  
  
     “Thank you, baby.”  
  
     They kissed again and this time it was a long kiss, full of so much passion, it almost turned Paul back on. He was so happy that he had managed to make John promise him that. For the first time in a long time, it felt like things were actually going right for him.  
  
     “The Americans would totally take you down though,” John said after the kiss, making him laugh soundly.  


	9. Chapter 9

     On Friday morning, at 10 AM, John and Paul loaded up their guitars in the trunk of Paul’s car and left for Scotland. They were both excited at the idea of seeing George again, but there was an air of anxiety mixed in that they couldn’t shake off. Paul thought there were only two ways John’s plan could go: really good or horribly wrong. He was hoping for the best, while mentally and emotionally preparing for the worst. John tried to appear confident and sure of himself and of what they were doing, but the nervous way he kept playing with his hair and sideburns made it obvious that he was worried as well.  
  
     “How long are we going to stay?” Paul asked.  
  
     “It depends on George,” John said. “If he agrees to join us, we’ll stay just a day or two.”  
  
     “And if he doesn’t?”  
  
     “Then we’ll have to stay longer to convince him.”  
  
     Paul laughed. “So we’re not just going to respect his decision, are we?”  
  
     “Not if it’s a bloody stupid decision.”  
  
     Paul shook his head slowly and rolled his eyes, a small smile on his face. “You are something else, you know that?”  
  
     “Yeah. The man you love, among other things.”  
  
     “Oh, stop it.”  
  
     “What? Am I not allowed to be proud of it?”  
  
     “Didn’t think you’d be.”  
  
     “But I am. I’m very proud that you love me and that you’re mine now.”  
  
     Paul couldn’t tell if John was being serious or joking, but his words made him happy anyway. He turned around to look at him again and John moved a bit closer, giving him a kiss. Paul kept holding his gaze for a moment longer, squeezing the wheeling in his hand. If he wouldn’t have been driving, he would have jumped in John’s arms and gave him a real kiss, but he didn’t want them to have an accident, so he licked his lips and turned his attention back on the road. “Are we going to tell him?”  
  
     “About us?” John asked and Paul nodded. “If you want to, I don’t mind.”  
  
     “I think we should tell him. George is our mate. He wouldn’t judge or hate us. I’m sure he’ll understand.”  
  
     “Then we’ll tell him,” John agreed. “But only to him. And he has to promise to keep it secret. I don’t want you to somehow end up hurt because of your feelings for me.”  
  
     Paul nodded silently, his eyes fixated on the road. While homosexuality wasn’t illegal anymore – like it had been when they were kids – it was still vastly frowned upon. Showing affection in public was still forbidden and there were people who would attack and even murder a gay man if they happened to cross paths with one.  He knew that he and John had to tread carefully and make sure that not too many people found out the true nature of their relationship.  
  
     “We’ll be careful,” he said, as a promise to both himself and John.

 

***

 

     “Are you sure we’re at the right address?” John asked.  
  
     Paul looked down at the piece of paper he was holding in his hands and then folded it in two and stuffed it in his pocket. “Yeah. This is it.”  
  
     They both squinted at the sight before them. The two storey house that their old friend lived in was surrounded by a huge garden that was so pretty and colourful it was almost sickening. “It’s so, like... Not George at all.” John commented.  
  
     “Well, you know... A lot of things change in nine years. Maybe George is into gardening right now, I don’t know,” Paul said, in their absent friend’s defence. “Besides, you have to keep in mind that he has a wife. This could very well be her doing.”  
  
     “He needs to divorce her,” John said. Paul elbowed him while they were walking towards the front door and they both laughed. “Do you know her name?”  
  
     “Grace,” Paul said, while knocking. “I spoke to her on the phone a couple times.” He checked his watch while waiting for someone to open up the door. It was close to 4 PM. He’d been driving for about six hours and he felt truly exhausted. Not to mention hungry. He wished he would have eaten more that morning for breakfast.  
  
     “Coming!” a feminine voice could be heard from inside the house when Paul knocked again, this time harder.  
  
     The door opened only a few seconds later and a young woman appeared in front of them. She had short, blonde hair and blue eyes and she was wearing a pink dress that exposed her delicate body yet managed to still make her look very classy. She gazed at them in confusion for a moment, before her face lit up in a beautiful, perfect smile. “Oh my Lord! You are Paul, aren’t you?”  
  
     “Yes, indeed,” Paul replied, returning the smile. “And this here –“  
  
     “This is John,” she said, before he could finish.  
  
     John smirked to her and then turned to look at Paul. “She’s good.”  
  
     “George talks about you two all the time. Please, come in!” Grace stepped out of the way to make room for them to walk inside. “I’ve seen so many pictures of you and heard so many stories, it’s like I almost know you.”  
  
     “Well, you and I spoke over the phone,” Paul reminded her.  
  
     “Yes, we did,” Grace confirmed, her smile still present on her face. “George isn’t home but he should arrive very soon. He didn’t tell me you’d be coming over. I would have prepared something special if I knew.”  
  
     “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Paul told her. “Besides, he has no idea that we’re coming either. It was kind of a rushed, impulsive decision me and John took. Literally over night.”  
  
     “I see. You wanted to surprise him.”  
  
     John laughed soundly and scratched the back of his head. “I guess you could say that.”  
  
     She took them to the living-room, which was spacious and well kept, except for the toys that were scattered everywhere. Building block, little cars and puzzles were spread across the floor, action figures were standing on the coffee table and two really fluffy teddy bears were on one of the armchairs, looking like they had been thrown there.  
  
     “There’s a lot of toys here...” Paul said, pulling nervously on his ear lobe.  
  
     “Oh, I’m sorry,” Grace apologised fast. “I keep asking my son to stop making a mess but he never listens. What can you do? Kids are kids.” She laughed and started cleaning up, picking the toys up and placing them in a big box from the back of the room, while John and Paul gazed at each other silently. “I will take this upstairs to his room, for when he comes back home,” she said, picking up the box she’d just filled. “He’s at my mother’s house right now but George will pick him up on his way home. Excuse me for a moment. Please, make yourselves comfortable.”  
  
     Paul smiled and nodded, both him and John sitting down on the couch. “He has a kid!” John whispered on an irritated tone as soon as the woman was gone.  
  
     “Yeah... I heard.”  
  
     “You never told me George has a fucking kid!”  
  
     “I had no idea!”  
  
     “Oh, so he told you that he got married but he didn’t mention that he became a bloody father? Come on, mate, I’m not a fucking idiot!”  
  
     “I swear to God, he didn’t tell me. I didn’t know! I would have told you if I knew!”  
  
     They stopped arguing when they heard Grace coming back down the stairs and smiled to her politely when she entered the room again. “Would you like a cup of tea? Coffee, maybe? Something stronger?”  
  
     “You got whiskey?” John asked.  
  
     “This is Scotland. Of course we have whiskey,” Grace replied, with a smirk. “I’ll bring you some right away.”  
  
     As she left again, the fake smiles on John and Paul’s faces instantly vanished. Paul looked at John, but John avoided his gaze, looking down instead, shaking his head slowly in disapproval and annoyance. “John, don’t be angry...” Paul whispered, moving a bit closer to him. “Why would I lie to you? You know I would have told you if I knew...”   
  
     “You know what this means, don’t you?” John said, turning his whole body around to face Paul. “He won’t go with it. He won’t come with us. There is no way he’s gonna leave his woman and child to come playing with us in some band. If it was just her, we may have had a chance but like this... There’s no way, mate, he won’t bloody do it!”  
  
     “You don’t know that!” Paul took John’s hand in his and squeezed it caringly. “Let’s wait for George to come home and talk to him. Maybe he’ll want to come. Maybe he’s still as crazy as we know him.”  
  
     “That’s a very big ‘maybe’...” John sighed. "Maybe he can't even play guitar anymore now. God knows when's the last time he touched one, if he's been busy changing diapers."  
  
     The sad, disappointed and hopeless look on his face made Paul’s heart sink. Paul knew how much John wanted George with them and he knew why as well. He wanted to recreate what the two of them had had in the beginning and they couldn’t do that without George. “It’s gonna be okay...” he said, pulling John’s hand up and pressing a soft kiss on his knuckles. “You can convince anyone of anything. And I’ll back you up with all I’ve got. I’m on your side, baby...”  
  
     John’s expression softened and he placed his hand on the back of Paul’s head, caressing his hair gently. “I love you...” he mouthed, without actually pronouncing the words out loud.  
  
     “I love you too,” Paul replied, in the same fashion.  
  
     He went in for a kiss, but the sound of Grace’s footsteps made them both pull back. He crossed his legs and got his fake smile back in place as she walked in, carrying a tray with two large glasses, a bottle of whiskey and an ashtray. “I will assume you two smoke,” she said, placing everything on the table. “My George goes through three packs a day, it’s madness.”  
  
     “That sounds more like the George I know,” John said, pulling his pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. “I’m the one who taught him to smoke, you know? Back when he was about fifteen.” He laughed and placed two cigarettes in his mouth, lighting them both up with a match and giving one of them to Paul. “Those were good times.”  
  
     “He did tell me about that,” Grace said, sitting down on the armchair. “You were... so important to him. He admired you so much.”  
  
     “Did he?” John asked, looking at the woman through the smoke that had already started gathering in the room. “Not so much anymore?”  
  
     “Well... You did completely vanish from his life, you know? Paul kept in touch, but you just disappeared... Where were you?”  
  
     There was an accusatory tone in Grace’s voice and Paul could tell that it was making John feel uncomfortable by the way his body tensed up and the way his eyes got colder. “Well... It’s complicated,” John replied, after a moment of silence.  
  
     The woman folded her hands together in her lap and smiled. “I’m sure it is,” she said, trying to sound understanding. Paul concluded that she was being just as fake as they were.  
  
     “So!” he started, trying to change the subject. “How old is your son?”  
  
     “Oh, he is five and a half,” she said, with a proud smile. “His name is Kenny.”  
  
     “But didn’t you and George get married three years ago?” Paul asked, taking a long puff of his cigarette.  
  
      “We did, yes,” the woman confirmed. “See, I already had Kenny when me and George met. His real father left me as soon as he found out I’m pregnant. Said he’s not ready for that kind of responsibility and that he’s too young to ruin his life with a child.”  
  
     “That’s harsh,” Paul told her. “I’m sorry.”  
  
     “It’s alright. He was a bastard. Anyway,” she continued, “I thought I would never find a man who would accept both me and Kenny into his life. But then I met George. And he didn’t mind at all... He loved me enough to love my son as well. He even legally adopted Kenny, gave him his name and everything. Never once acted as if Kenny wasn’t his... He’s an amazing man.”  
  
     “Yes, he is,” Paul nodded in approval. “George has always been very kind and loving, since we were kids. I’m sure he’s a great father.”  
  
     “Why did you two come here?” She suddenly asked. “Is this just some friendly reunion or is there something you want from George? Because I find it strange, popping out of nowhere like that after, what, almost ten years?”  
  
     “It’s been long, yeah...” Paul agreed. He looked at John, trying to ask him without words if he should tell Grace anything, but he couldn’t tell what John wanted him to do, so he remained silent, taking a sip out of his whiskey to justify his lack of response.  
  
     “It’s just a friendly reunion,” John said. “A band reunion. Does he still play the guitar?”  
  
     “Oh yes,” Grace smiled. “He’s truly gifted. I love hearing him play. He works in a guitar store. Kind of wants to be around them all the time. It’s almost like an obsession, but I find it endearing.”  
  
     “So do I,” John smirked. “This is marvellous news, honestly.” He sounded a lot more confident and relaxed, like a player in a game who could already see his victory. “How about you? Do you have a job?”  
  
     “Yes. I’m a nurse,” Grace answered.  
  
     “That’s nice. Paul’s mum was a nurse, wasn’t she, mate?”  
  
     “Yeah, kind of. My mum was a midwife, not a nurse,” Paul corrected him. “But close enough, I guess.”  
  
     John opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a loud knock in the front door. He looked towards the hall for a moment and then turned back to look at Grace. “Is it him?” He asked.  
  
     “We’ll see,” she giggled, getting up from the armchair.  
  
     She left the room in a hurry, while the knocking continued. Paul and John remained on the couch, looking at each other, a smile appearing on their faces at the sound of George’s familiar voice. He was greeting his wife while their son was saying something about a swimming pool.  
  
     “You’ll never guess who’s here,” they heard Grace saying.  
  
     “Is it my sister?” George asked. “She’s been saying for months that she’ll come over soon.”  
  
     “We’re not your bloody sister, mate!” John said, loud enough for George to hear him, while still holding Paul’s gaze.  
  
     Paul laughed, closing his eyes for just a few seconds; when he opened them, George had already entered the room and was staring at them with amazement and excitement. He had physically changed a lot since Paul had last seen him. He was taller, his eyes were bigger, his hair was long and wavy, brushing against his shoulders and even his face structure seemed to be different. His smile, however, was just as childish and cute as Paul remembered.  
  
     John whistled, looking at George from top to bottom, measuring him with his eyes, before letting out a chuckle, getting up from the sofa and taking a few steps forward. “Damn, son! You sure grew up a lot!”  
  
     George crossed the distance that was left between them and pulled John into a tight hug, squeezing him in a grip that looked almost painful. “John! I can’t believe you’re actually here...”  
  
     John laughed again and wrapped one of his arms around George, using the other to caress his friend’s hair in an overly affectionate, almost theatrical manner. “There, there... It’s okay. Did you miss me?”  
  
     “Of course I did!” George said, pulling away from the hug. “You bastard! You have any idea how worried I was? At one point I thought you was dead, mate!”  
  
     “I’m sorry, I’m sorry... I know I should have kept in contact with you,” John said, on a serious tone. “I just... It’s a long story.”  
  
     “Oh, we got time. You’re going to explain this shit to me.”  
  
     “I will. But, right now, you are completely ignoring an important someone who hates being ignored."  
  
     Paul - who had silently watched their interaction until then – let out a small giggle and rose to his feet. “It’s alright, George, don’t worry. Me and you kept talking, but you haven’t heard from him for years.”  
  
     “Felt more like centuries, really,” George said, shaking his head in disapproval at John. He hugged Paul just as tightly as he’d hugged John and caressed his back tenderly. “It’s good to see you, mate. I’ve missed you a lot as well.”  
  
     Paul didn’t say anything, preferring instead to just squeeze George as hard as he could. He felt like that physical connection spoke louder than any words he could have said.  
  
     “You guys smell like Liverpool,” George told them both, after he and Paul let go of each other.  
  
     John and Paul exchanged a fast look, puzzled by their friend’s words. “Wha-...? You mean we smell like fish and chips and... the sea?” Paul asked.  
  
     George laughed loudly, throwing his head back. “No, mate. You smell like home...”  
  
     They all smiled and John nodded slowly. “I like that.” He slapped George’s shoulder slowly before letting his hand down and looking towards the hall. “Where did your girl disappear?”  
  
      George looked around himself, as if he hadn’t even noticed that Grace and Kenny were not around. “Oh, I think she went to take the boy upstairs. Probably trying to give us some privacy.”  
  
     “That’s good,” John said, “because we have a damn lot to talk about, mate.”


	10. Chapter 10

     Explaining everything to George took a while, but the man didn’t seem to be in any hurry. He listened patiently, with a calm that Paul found almost irritating; it was a professional hazard. He had learned to see everyone who was too composed as either hostile, hiding something or patronizing him. But George wasn’t like that; he was actually just a very good and understanding friend. Paul had to keep reminding himself that as he told him the truth about his childhood, his problems with his father and the real reason why he had moved to London after they had returned from Hamburg. It was hard to let it all out – much harder than it had been to tell John – but once he was done, he felt as if a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders. George understood him and didn’t judge or pity him, which was everything Paul could have asked for. It assured him that George, though he looked so different and had grown so much, was still the same bloke he once knew and loved.  
  
     Grace served them dinner two hours later and Paul focused mainly on his food – though he had lost most of the hunger he’d felt when he’d arrived there. The conversation had emotionally exhausted him, so he was happy to just be silent for a while.  
  
     John started talking in his place, telling his side of the story. He spoke with such ease about everything that had happened to him in the past nine years, even about the time he’d spent in prison, losing Cynthia, becoming addicted to drugs at a dangerous level and falling in and out of depression. It was like he didn’t care at all what people would think or if they were going to judge him or not. That was something Paul had always appreciated about John. Though he didn’t have much self esteem, John was never afraid to be himself.  
  
     “Well,” Grace said when John was done talking. She’d been very silent until then, just staring at both of her husband’s friends with a critical look in her eyes. “I am certainly glad that I served Kenny his dinner upstairs tonight. That was a lot.”  
  
     John chuckled and leaned back in his seat. “George wanted to know what I’ve done and so I told him. There’s no need to sugar coat things when you’re talking to your mates, right?” He grabbed his half empty glass of wine from the table and drank it fast, with everyone staring at him.  
  
     “There’s definitely no need to sugar coat anything,” George said, tapping John’s shoulder. “I now understand why you didn’t try to contact me sooner. You were going through a lot. I’m really sorry, mate...”  
  
     “While that is all very sweet,” Grace started, “I still don’t understand why you two have suddenly decided to come by. What changed?”  
  
     “A lot changed,” Paul said. “John and I, we...” He paused and looked at John. He thought about telling Grace of their relationship, but the concerned look that John gave him made him remain silent. It was probably not a good idea. George was their friend, not her. She was just his wife, and she didn’t seem to like them much anyway, even though she tried really hard to appear polite and friendly. “We want to put the band back together,” he eventually told her.  
  
     George looked at him and then at John with a big smile on his face. “Are you serious?” He asked.  
  
     “Yes,” John answered. “I am tired of doing this shit on my own. And you should have seen how the people reacted when Paul and I played together. It was madness! Reminded me of Hamburg, but in a good way, you know?”  
  
     “I can only imagine. It sounds really beautiful, mate.”  
  
     “We want to start again. To give it another go,” John continued. “Paul has the money, we could get some good instruments, try to get a record deal and everything. And we want you with us. No, we need with us. We couldn’t be a band without you, George.” He paused to take a breath and then looked at his former friend with a small smile. “It’s not too late, is it?”  
  
     “Of course not,” George replied fast. “It’s never too late. Are you bloody kidding me?! I’ve been waiting for this since the day we parted! The truth is, no matter what I did or how many jobs I tried, in the back of my mind, I always thought about music. Nothing felt right because I felt like I should be doing music.”  
  
     “I kind of felt that way too,” Paul admitted. “But I just lied to myself that I was happy until I convinced myself of it, you know?”  
  
     “Mate, I told you before, that shit is depressing,” John said.  
  
     Paul and George both laughed and Paul shook his head softly. “Guess you’re right.”  
  
     John pulled his pack of Marlboro out of his pocket and took a cigarette out, placing it between his lips. “So are you in?”  
  
     “Hell yeah, I’m in!” George agreed, lighting up John’s cigarette for him. “When do we start? How are we going to do this? Are you two moving here to Scotland?”  
  
     “No,” John said, taking a long puff. “You would have to come back with us to Liverpool.”  
  
     Paul looked at George and then at his wife as John revealed the implications of their plan. Grace had not been too pleased by their presence there from the beginning, but in that moment, she seemed completely revolted. And George, he was visibly conflicted; Paul could almost hear his internal struggle as he watched him biting onto his lips and playing with a streak of his long hair.  
  
     “Why Liverpool?” he asked. “Why can’t we just do all that here?”  
  
     “Because Liverpool is our home,” John said. “And it’s the best place to start. Everyone there already knows me and they love my music. They will definitely buy our records. After that, we can expend. Take over the entire England, maybe go international as well.”  
  
     George nodded, though he didn’t look too convinced. “You really think we can do that?”  
  
     “Yeah, I do. The question is, why don’t you believe it? Come on, mate! We’re bloody good! Have a little faith in us, for fuck’s sake.”  
  
     “You’re right...” George said. “I don’t trust myself on my own, but the three of us... The three of us are good together. Or we used to be, at least.”  
  
     “We were the best together,” John confidently said. “And we still are. We will need a drummer though, but I’m sure we can find one in Liverpool.”  
  
     “All these songs you said you’ve made... I wanna hear them so much. You didn’t record any, did you?”  
  
     “No. But I can play them for you right now, if you want.” John put off his cigarette in the ashtray and smirked. “I can go get my guitar. It’s outside in the car.”  
  
     “I can bring you one from upstairs, if it’s all you need. I have a lot of them.”  
  
     “That would be great.”  
  
     “Hold on!” Grace said loudly when George got up from the table. “Sit down, baby,” she requested, pulling on his sleeve and he did, while Paul and John just looked at them both. She sighed deeply before continuing. “We haven’t finished this conversation. You can’t just start singing as if it’s all set. George, I won’t let you abandon me and your son to go have some adventure with two men you haven’t seen in nine bloody years. For Christ’s sake, you’re not sixteen anymore!”  
  
     “You can come too, you know?” John suggested. “I have nothing against it. You could move to Liverpool with your son, be close to George while we’re working on our careers.”  
  
     “I am not moving to Liverpool. I am not moving anywhere and neither is George. This is madness, you people can’t be serious. What will you do if it doesn’t work?”  
  
     “It will work,” John assured her. “I know what I’m doing.”  
  
     The woman laughed nervously. “I am sorry, John, but after everything you told us that you’ve been doing, it sounds to me like you have no idea what you’re doing. You’re stuck in the past, trying to live your life as if you’re still eighteen. You need to wake up to reality. You should find a nice woman, get married, have some kids and move on with your life. You’re not a kid anymore.”  
  
     “Don’t talk like that to John,” George said. It sounded like both an order and a warning.  
  
     “It’s alright, mate,” John told him. “It’s not like she’s the first one to tell me all this crap. But this isn’t about me anyway, it’s about you.” He turned to look at Grace again. “Why don’t you trust him? You said you think he’s gifted and that you love hearing him play.”  
  
     “I do. I think George is very talented and I’ve always encouraged him to keep music a part of his life. But that doesn’t mean I think he should drop everything and pursue a career in it.”  
  
     “Why not?” George asked.  
  
     “Because if it didn’t happen the first time, what makes you think it will happen now?”  
  
     “It was different the first time,” Paul said, deciding he’d been silent long enough. Everyone stared at him and he smiled, leaving his head down for a moment and thinking of the perfect way he could word what he wanted to say. “The first time we tried this we were very young, as you well know. We were practically children. We had no idea what we were doing or what we wanted. Also, we didn’t have any money. But now, we are all adults and we know exactly where we want to get and we have the means to get it. We have my money and John has quite the fanbase in Liverpool.”  
  
     “Yes, I understand, but –“  
  
     “I am a successful lawyer, Grace,” Paul interrupted here before she could finish. “Do you really think I would be willing to give up on my career and invest all my money into this if I wasn’t 100% sure that it can work?”  
  
     “No, of course not...” She said. “I do know that you’re a responsible man, Paul, and that you’ve got your head on your shoulders.”  
  
     “So, you could say you trust my judgement,” Paul said. It was a question, but he made it sound as a fact and she was eager to agree with it.  
  
     “Yes, of course I do.”  
  
     He smiled inside but kept a serious look on his face. “Then you should trust me on this. I am sure that everything will be fine. We can do this. We are good enough to do it. I am certain that we could become famous worldwide, if we go about it the right way. Have you ever even heard me and John play? Or heard the three of us together?”  
  
     “Well... No...” She admitted.  
  
     “Then how can you be so sure that it won’t work out? You have no idea what we have to bring to the world. We could be a legendary act that you’re trying to stop.”  
  
     “Don’t say that, you’re making me sound awful... I am just trying to look out for George, that’s all."  
  
     “George is an adult. He can look after himself. If you love him, what you should do is believe in him and support him. Don’t try to discourage him and don’t ever try to keep him from his dreams, even if you worry or doubt. That’s what my father did and it just... It hurt, you know? That’s nothing more painful than someone you love a lot having no faith in you.”  
  
     Grace went silent for a moment and then she smiled and nodded. “You’re right...” she said. “You’re absolutely right.” She got up from her chair and hugged George lovingly from behind, pressing a soft kiss on his head. “I’ll go bring a guitar so that John can show you those songs, alright?” She offered.  
  
     “Thank you, love,” George smiled. He gave her a small kiss before she left the room and then turned to look at Paul. “Unbelievable. You are bloody amazing, mate.”  
  
     “Well, convincing people of things is my job. I’m glad that I was able to help.”  
  
     “You totally won this case, Macca!” John said, caressing Paul’s leg with his hand underneath the table. “Well done.”  
  
     “Thanks,” Paul giggled, looking down at the table.  
  
     He bit his lip, feeling a bit nervous and a bit aroused as John’s hand travelled up and down his leg. When he looked up at George, he found their friend smiling brightly. ‘ _We should tell him...’_ he thought. It seemed like the perfect opportunity, but for some reason, he couldn’t do it. He opened his mouth but nothing came out, so he just gently brushed John’s hand off without George noticing and took his glass from the table, taking a sip of the wine. _‘Later...’_ He decided.

 

***

 

     “That was marvelous!” Grace said, while George was clapping loudly.  
  
     John smiled and put the guitar down. “Thank you.”  
  
     They had moved to the living-room after she had returned with one of her husband’s guitars and John had played five of his new songs for them. George and Grace were both amazed – Grace more so than George, it seemed – while Paul had just watched his lover’s performance with a proud smile. He was sure that after hearing John, the possibility of Grace still trying to stop them would drop even lower, and he had been right.  
  
     “I had no idea that you are this good," she said. There was both excitement and a tint of regret in her voice.  
  
     “Wait until you hear Paul sing,” John smirked, lighting up a cigarette. “He’s much better than me.”  
  
     “Nonsense,” Paul laughed. “He’s just being modest. He’s the one who’s better.”  
  
     “Have you written any songs while you were alone?” George curiously asked.  
  
     “A few, but they are not that great,” Paul said. He thought back on all the songs he’d written. ‘A few’ was a major understatement. He had at least five notebooks full of songs he’d written in those past nine years, he just didn’t feel confident enough to sing them in front of people. “Well... There is one,” he added, his mind falling on a particular song he’d written for John. “May I?”  
  
     John passed him the guitar, while George turned around to look at him better. Paul moved around in the armchair he was sitting in, squeezing the instrument in his arms for a moment and clearing his throat.  
  
     “It’s called ‘Yesterday’,” he announced.  
  
     He started playing it, looking at the ground while singing. He could feel everyone starting at him, but he tried to ignore it. Closing his eyes, his mind flashed back to the moment when he'd written it, more than four years in the past. It was the day he had moved to the beautiful house he had bought for himself in London. His career had just started flourishing. His father had called him to tell him how proud of him he was and all the friends he’d made were congratulating him left and right. But, even with all that, he felt dead inside. All he could think about back then was the life he’d left behind, which he wanted back more than anything. The weight of the mask he’d been wearing had become unbearable and he hated it.  
  
     “Suddenly, I’m not half the man I used to be. There’s a shadow hanging over me... Oh, yesterday, came suddenly...” he sang, his eyes feeling a bit wet as he opened them. He looked up at John, who was watching him closely. “Why he had to go? I don’t know. He wouldn’t say...” John raised his eyebrow, a small sad smile on his face. He lowered his gaze and Paul looked away as well, forcing a smile on his face. “I’ve said something wrong, now I long for yesterday...”  
  
     There was such a powerful silence during the two minutes that he sang, which felt like an eternity. The silence remained for a few more seconds after he was done. It was like everyone was too shocked or impressed to speak, so he put the guitar down and laughed, trying to makes them snap out of it.  
  
     “That was gorgeous, Paul,” Grace said. “It was very emotional...”  
  
     “That was a bloody masterpiece, mate!” George added, before Paul even got to thank the woman. “That needs to be on a record. Everyone in the world needs to hear that song. It sounded so timeless... I think even 50 years from now, people would still love that song.”  
  
     Paul laughed loudly and scratched the back of his head. “Now you’re just bullshitting me. It’s not that amazing.”  
  
     “Oh, but it is!” George insisted. “It really is.”  
  
     “Indeed. I completely agree,” his wife said. “Although, I think you should change the gender of the person you were singing about, because the way it is, it sounds a bit queer.”  
  
     “Well, the one I was thinking about while writing it was John,” Paul explained. “Because he disappeared from my life, which is why I chose to do what my father wanted and move to London. And I never knew why. He didn’t say, he... We didn’t talk anymore until we found each other again, a week ago.”  
  
     “I’m sorry...” John said, with a honesty that his voice rarely held.  
  
     Paul nodded his head in acknowledgment, silently accepting the apology. “Well...” Grace giggled. “You two obviously have a very strong friendship, don’t you?”  
  
     “I guess you could say that, yeah,” John told her.  
  
     “I was too fast to judge you and I was very wrong in my assumptions. You lads are incredible and I already know my George is as well,” Grace said, taking her husband’s hand in hers. “If you want to leave with them, I won’t stand in the way.”  
  
     George kissed her hands and then her forehead, while his friends just watched him with a smile. “Thank you, baby... You know how much I’ve been waiting for this. For them...”  
  
     “I know,” she nodded, caressing his head gently.  
  
     “Don’t worry, we’re not going to kidnap him,” Paul giggled. “I will make sure he calls you every day and that he comes to see you as often as he can.”  
  
     “Thank you, Paul. I appreciate it,” she said. “How long is it going to take? Do you plan to eventually settle down somewhere or are hoping to become famous enough to just travel the whole world with your music?”  
  
     Paul, John and George all looked at each other. “We haven’t really thought that far yet,” John admitted. “Liverpool is just a temporary thing though. Paul and I decided that we should have our big start there, one way or another, because that’s what feels right. After that, we’ll see what happens. If we become famous enough to travel the world with our music though, I am sure George is going to take you and your son with us.”  
  
     “Of course I will,” George agreed. “I love you, darling.”  
  
     “I love you, too,” his wife whispered.  
  
     They kissed and John and Paul remained silent, allowing them their moment together. Paul felt happy and proud of himself for managing to change Grace’s opinion about them and their music. John would not have been able to do that on his own, he would not have been able to convince her to agree with their plans. _‘I guess he really does need me...’_ he thought, looking at his lover.  
  
     “I will go prepare the guest room for you two,” the woman said, getting up from the couch. “Sadly, we only have one. I hope you two won’t mind sharing it. If you do mind, one of you could stay here and sleep on the couch.”  
  
     “No, it's okay,” John said. “We don’t mind sharing the room, right, mate?”  
  
     “Of course not,” Paul agreed. “It’s alright.”  
  
     “Excellent,” Grace smiled. “Then I will go change the sheets and bring you lads some extra pillows. We don’t have guests that often so it’s rarely used.”  
  
     They thanked her fast before she left, while George was pouring himself a glass of whiskey. “I am so glad you two came here. You have no idea how happy you’ve made me!”  
  
     “George, there’s something else that you should know,” Paul said, on a serious tone.  
  
     “What is it? Something about the band?”  
  
     “Well... Not really.” Paul looked at John for a second and then back at George. “It’s about me and John.”  
  
     George took a sip of his drink. “Alright..? What is it?” He asked, when Paul didn’t continue.  
  
     “Well... Uhm...” Paul babbled. “Me and him, we... Uhm...”  
  
     “We’re in love,” John boldly said. “With each other,” he added, to make sure George understood. “And we’re dating right now.”  
  
     George was silent for a moment, staring at both of them in shock. “Are you serious?” He asked.  
  
     “Yeah...” Paul confirmed. “We wanted you to know because you are our friend. And since you will come with us, you were bound to find out, sooner or later, so it’s better to just take it out of the way from the start.” He took a deep breath in and smiled timidly. “I hope it doesn’t change anything...”  
  
     “Of course it doesn’t!” George said. “Bloody Hell, I am so happy for you two!”  
  
     “You are?” John asked.  
  
     “Yeah! I knew since we were kids that there’s something different about you two and about your relationship. You connected in a way in which I was never able to connect with any of my friends, not even with my brothers. Like twin souls or something. Two pieces of the same puzzle. That’s why I was so shocked when you just stopped talking to each other and went on separate ways. It blew my mind because, back then, I thought you two would be together forever.”  
  
     “And we will be,” John said. He got up and went to sit on the armrest of the armchair Paul was sitting in, taking Paul’s hand in his and giving it a kiss. “Nothing and no one will separate us from now on. We will be together forever.”  
  
     “This is the best news you could have possibly given me,” George said. “Because I know there’s no one better for you two than each other.”  
  
     “Thank you, George...” Paul said. He almost felt like crying. “I mean this. Thank you... I was so worried you might be against our relationship. Because John and I are... You know...”  
  
     “Both men?” George asked.  “Come on, Paul. You can’t possibly believe I am that close minded.”  
  
     “I don’t. I just worry too much, I guess.”  
  
     “Your wife doesn’t seem as accepting as you, judging by that comment she made about Macca’s song,” John said. “So, if you don’t mind, I would really appreciate it if you didn’t share this information with her. Or with anyone, really. This is our secret and you have to keep it.”  
  
     “Don’t worry. Your secret is safe with me.” They all smiled and John pressed a kiss on Paul’s head, which made George giggle like a little kid. “You two are seriously adorable together!”

 

***

 

     “Well that was easier than I’d expected,” John said, once him and Paul were alone together in the guest room. “George is fine with our relationship, his wife is fine with us taking him away and he kept playing guitar all these years, which means we won’t have to teach him anything. It’s almost too good to be true.”  
  
     Paul took off his watch and placed it on the night stand, before unbuttoning his sleeves and removing his tie. “It’s amazing,” he agreed.  
  
     “It is, yeah. And still, you don’t sound excited at all,” John pointed out. “Are you alright?”  
  
     “Yeah...” Paul sighed. “I was just thinking...”  
  
     John walked to him and wrapped his arms around him from behind, holding him tightly and kissing his neck. “About?”  
  
     “My family...” Paul said.  
  
     John stopped kissing him when he heard that, but he kept holding him in his arms. “What about them?”  
  
     “My brother organised this big dinner at his house this evening. He invited my dad and all my relatives. And I was supposed to be there, but... I obviously wasn’t.”  
  
     “Did you wanted to go?”  
  
     “Hell no. Last time I saw my dad we had that big fight, you know about it. We didn’t end it on a good note and I know he’s still angry about it. We would have probably ended up arguing again. I’m happy I didn’t go... Is just... I can’t stop thinking that he might be even angrier at me now, for not going, you know?”  
  
     “Baby, look at me,” John said, making Paul turn around to face him. “There is nothing your father can do to hurt you. You’re not a child anymore, you’re a grown up. You can do whatever the Hell you want and there is no way in Hell he can stop you.”  
  
     “I know that...” Paul said. “And when you say it that way, it sounds so logical and obvious, but... A part of me is still scared of him, you know? For some reason... I still feel like I have to do what he says, that I must not disappoint him.”  
  
     “Hey, I get it. Trust me...” John rubbed Paul’s shoulders with his palms in a comforting way. “A part of me still feels like everyone is going to abandon me, because... My mom and dad did, why would anyone else choose to stay if they didn’t?”   
  
     “John...”  
  
     “What I am trying to say,” John said, pressing his finger on Paul’s lips to stop him from talking, “is that it’s normal to still hold onto these irrational thoughts and feelings from when you were a child. No matter how much we grow, they stay, maybe because we spend too much time as children thinking and feeling those things. But it’s all an illusion, Paul. And I think we need to be each other’s clarity.”  
  
     “What do you mean?”  
  
     “I can always remind you that you are safe now and that your father is not going to hurt you anymore...” John said, tucking Paul’s hair behind his ear to see his face better. “And you can remind me that I am not alone... And that there are people who are willing to stay and fight for me. Like you...”  
  
     Paul grabbed onto John’s shirt and pulled him closer, until their chests were pressed against each other. “I will fight everything and everyone for you, if I have to. I’d rather die than lose you again...”  
  
     “I would kill anyone who tries to hurt you,” John said in return. “I know that probably sounds less romantic, but I would.”  
  
     Paul giggled. “It doesn’t sound less romantic...” He whispered. “It’s perfect. I always wanted someone who would love me like that. Who would protect me...”  
  
     “Oh, I’ll protect you,” John smirked, wrapping his arms around Paul’s waist. “I won’t let anyone touch you or harm you. You’re safe with me. I got you...”  
  
     Paul smiled and moved his hand up slowly from John’s chest to his neck, letting it rest behind his head, his fingers sinking into John’s hair. “I love you, John...”  
  
     “I know,” John said, pressing a kiss on his lips. “I love you, too.”  
  
     He unbuttoned Paul’s shirt fast and pulled it off, before pushing him down on the bed and climbing on top of him. “Do you think you can be silent?” he asked. “I don’t want Grace to hear us, but... I really, really want you.”  
  
     Paul giggled and grabbed onto John’s tie, pulling his closer. “I can try,” he said, driving him into a long kiss.


End file.
